Picture taken from: http://www.aera.net/Education-Research

Well I have just handed in my last assignment for EER 500 – Introduction to Educational Research.  I started this subject in Semester 2 2017 along with Introduction to Teacher Librarian but found doing two subjects, plus teaching, plus running a business and a family just too much.  So I deferred EER 500 – Introduction to Educational Research as I thought it would be best to concentrate on my other subject.

EER 500 – Introduction to Educational Research was not something I was particularly interested in.  I have started reading the text book prior to deferring and it didn’t exactly grab me, so I started Semester 3 2017 with some trepidation.

I was lucky to have Beverley Moriarty as the course co-ordinator.  I found the subject and the assignments a bit overwhelming but Bev. was great at providing feedback and just general cheerleading.  The assignments were set out in a way that I could easily work through step-by-step so that was helped me greatly – even though I often thought ‘I don’t know what I am doing!!!”.

Now that I have completed both assignments I can see the work that goes into educational research.  I do not have any interest in completing any research (though I think we all do ‘adhoc’ or ‘anecdotal’ research all the time as teachers) but working through the process has opened my eyes to what is involved and will make me a more discerning reader of research in the future.  Looking at different types of research; longitudinal studies, case studies etc. and the different types of data that can be collected (quantitative versus qualitative versus mixed methods) gives me awareness of the strengths and weakness present in the types of research I will no doubt be reading in the future.