Education Reflection

In a final 4-6 page paper, summarize your key insights about qualitative research from the course, and ideas of how you may use ideas from the course in your future work.

Format for Qualitative Inquiry in Education Research Paper:

1. The bulk of your paper should focus on insights around these two questions:
   • What have you learned conceptually about qualitative research?
   • What have you learned about the process of conducting qualitative research?
2. To a lesser extent, you should also address the following:
   • What remaining questions/areas of confusion do you have about conducting/evaluating qualitative research?
   • In what ways do you see yourself applying ideas from the course to your work in education/research?
3. Your reflections should be well elaborated and supported by material from the course: readings, lectures, discussions, in-class activities and outside assignments. Use multiple concrete examples to support each of your reflections. References should be cited using APA format. Please see rubric for further writing guidelines.

What Should be included in Education Reflection Paper:

1. Understanding of course content. Concepts from the course are thoroughly and accurately described. Concepts of the course are generally accurately described, may have some misunderstandings, confusion. Additional connections to course content are needed and/or several misunderstandings Limited connections to course content and/or numerous misunderstandings
2. Depth of analysis Accounts of concepts and applications show thoughtful and original analysis. Accounts of concepts and applications are fairly thoughtful and/or original. Additional analysis of concepts and applications is needed. Concepts and applications are presented with very little or no analysis.
3. Use of examples Multiple examples are used thoughtfully to illustrate and elaborate ideas. Multiple examples are used to illustrate ideas. Additional examples are needed to illustrate ideas. Very few or no examples are used.
4. Writing style.
   Spelling, punctuation, or typographical errors. APA citation format. Writing is coherent and free from errors. Writing is coherent, but there are a few minor errors. Several errors or incoherent sentences. Numerous errors and incoherent sentences.
   

Notes for the Education Reflection Term Paper:

1. Ethics- Informants enter research projects voluntarily, understanding the nature of the study and the dangers and obligations that are involved. Informants are not exposed to risks that are greater than gains they might obtain.
2. Reflexivity- To reflect back on the original pilot study in order to deepen the understanding of the research process.
3. Method- To analyzed journal entries for what is revealed about the management of each phase of the study.
4. Why a Research Journal?- Getting ideas down when they occur is actually the beginning of analysis.
5. Writing and reflection- a researcher is able to clarify not only the researchers purpose, but also why the particular Education Reflection was worth pursuing.

Designing the study- Education Reflection

1. Develop a conceptual framework that is thorough.
2. Planning a design that is systematic and manageable yet flexible.
3. Being able to integrate these into a coherent document that convinces the proposal reader that the study should be done, can be done, and will be done.

Things to Consider when writing Education Reflection Term Paper:

1. Participant Issues- The researcher participants were chosen because they had access to them, and they could provide the researcher a good opportunity to learn.
2. Data Collection- Data Management- include field notes in the research journal because it's easier to see connections if everything was in one place.
3. Observation Guides- List of questions or areas of data collection that researchers take to the field to direct their data collection.
4. Observer's Comments- Sections of field notes where the researcher steps back from the description of what he or she is observing to reflect on what he or she is learning. Observer's comments also contain comments about methodological problems and other aspects of the study at hand.
5. In-depth Interviewing- Interviewing designed to get a rich understanding of the subjects way of thinking. They are usually long, an hour of more, less structured than a typical interview and involve the researcher probing into topics that the subjects bring up. In-depth interviewing often involves more than underlings when conducting research.
6. Open-ended Interviewing- Interviewing with no particular set agenda. The researcher engages the subject in conversations and follows leads brought up by him or her. Often used synonymously with unstructured interviewing.
7. Nature of Qualitative Inquiry- The journal naturally becomes a place to bring together participant data, notes on the methodology literature, thoughts and ideas, and reading responses.
8. Data Analysis- organizing what has been seen, heard, and read so that sense can be made of what is learned.
9. Writing the Narrative- Researchers become storytellers, inviting the reader to see through their eyes what they have seen, and then offering an interpretation.
10. Personal Issues- time consuming, intimate, and intense.
11. Lessons Learned- having a journal permitted the researcher to consider the research whole rather than in parts.
12. Validity- Results of qualitative research are credible or believable from the perspective of the participant in the research. To describe or understand the phenomena of interest from the participant's eyes.
13. Coding- The process of developing categories to sort data. Also used to refer to the sorting process.
14. Saturation- When you have a category and you are not getting new information from it.