Critical Commentary

The idea of this module was to learn and understand different research methods and techniques for our next module which is our project. We have been asked to learn about the different methods of research and understand, what they are, advantages and disadvantages and if they are useful for the title of our projects.

During the module I have been unable to attend the campus sessions due to work commitments so I have relied a lot upon good solid information from other students such as Danielle Stacey and Sophie Gilbert as well as posts from the advisors that have been very useful. I have also relied a lot on the module book that we were supplied with as this has a wide range of information about the different methods of research, and it gives you many other websites to look at for guidance however in certain areas such as putting the module together for assessment I found confusing. The book that we were advised to get “Doing your research project” 3^rd edition by Judith Bell I found extremely useful and I have used a great deal of information from the book as its very relevant to what we have been asked to do and I found the structure of the book incredibly handy.

At first my main focus of this module was about the title of my project. I spent days on end thinking about what I wanted to base it around knowing that my degree title was going to relate to it. When I toyed with the ideas of titles I decided on “The public’s perceptions on Pole dancing as a sport. Once I had decided my title I started to learn some of the different ways to research as part of my research and development notes.

Throughout this module I have had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t actually doing the research and that I was just finding out how to research. This sounds easier than it actually was as it was easy to start piloting interview questions and writing down lists of what I wanted to do for my project, rather than just writing about all the different methods of research. I found that the research methods started to make more sense as I started to understand what methods would be useful to complete my project. I have understood that there are many different research methods and techniques some I already knew about like interviews, questionnaires and surveys and many I had never heard of before such as deskwork, fieldwork, reliability and they all have advantages and disadvantages depending upon what you want to research.

Through the research process I found the activities fairly easy to complete as the handbook equips you with plenty of information of how to do them. I found the internet helpful for other ways of describing key words throughout the handbook which helped me through Activity 1. I understand the role of a worker-researcher and have explained my role as a worker-researcher in my project proposal as previously I had never heard of the term. Since designing and completing my own survey on www.surveymonkey.com which I found incredibly enjoyable as I like to see results.

Before starting this module I had not studied or considered the importance of ethics. As I will be collecting data learning about ethics has been especially important for me as it is essential. I believe I have the knowledge to proceed with my proposal after understanding the ethical considerations within my work based learning study.

I have found this module challenging as my work commitments have increased and have had less time to complete this module than the previous one. I also feel that I have quite often been confused in what was needed from me in certain tasks and how to actually put the whole module together as I don’t think the handbook is very clear in certain areas, I do feel that others felt the same. I have had contact with my advisor through email on many occasions and a phone call to discuss my project proposal and rationale for my degree title. I think I would have benefited from a clearer understanding in the exact criteria and maybe if I was able to attend the campus sessions then this would have been clearer.

I am a perfectionist and getting an average result is not acceptable. I have worked extremely hard on this module and put many, many hours in to ensure that I get the results I have been achieving. I hope that I can maintain my results with a good mark for this module.