Research Journal Page 3

You should be keeping track of databases you used, keywords and subject searches, the process you used for finding and gathering articles. You should also make notes of the questions that arise from your readings, concerns you have about methods, ideas you have for further research, etc.
Second journal check will be 3/25

I spent all of my research time in EBSCO database.  I started out using the keywords “youth and reading” and searched all of the databases within EBSCO.  The results came back with a lot of articles about incarcerated youth and how to prevent incarceration by helping youth with reading skills.  I didn’t narrow it down to a full text search or peer reviewed at first.  When I didn’t see what I was looking for, I did another search in EBSCO, utilizing the Boolean operator-“youth” in subject terms and “reading” in subject terms.  I did do a full text search and peer reviewed articles only this time.  This gave me limited results with many of the articles having topics such as guides for teen reading, new titles, teen reading interests, etc.  Since my group is Youth and Reading, I wanted resources that focused more generally on the actual reading habits of teens.  I decided to change my search terms to “teens” and “reading” using the Boolean operator, but did not assign subject or title, etc. to the terms.  I did search all databases for full text articles only.  This is where I was successful in finding a variety of articles on my topic.  I read through many of them online to see which I thought would be the most interesting to read and discuss and picked six, which I then narrowed down to five. 

I was really looking for articles that researched ways to motivate students to read, how to incorporate technology tools, and students’ attitudes towards reading-why do they read?  Exploring this question is difficult since it is such a general topic, but here are a few of the questions that I asked when thinking about why students read- Do students read to validate their lives? To justify/understand their own life experiences? To escape reality?

I found there to be quite a few articles about incorporating tools of technology into the teaching of reading, most significantly, the impact of both author and personal blogs upon teens and reading.  The articles about the blogs are what intrigued me the most.  I could see a strong connection between teens reading and accessing blogs of popular authors.  I agree that this is a way to feed into a reading interest that a teen might have, but it also brought more questions, such as: 

How to use and apply these same resources (of blogs) in the school and public library setting?  How can librarians stay involved in the current trends regarding these types of resources and utilizing this knowledge to serve their teen patrons?

All of these are questions that I hope to explore further at a later time.

Research Journal Page 2

Why have a research journal?  Why write reflectively about research?

When I first looked at this assignment, I thought about how tough it would be to have a research journal.  I mean, what would there be to write?  I decided that I needed to think a bit about the importance of a journal and ask myself what purpose a journal will serve.  In order to really dig a little deeper into the idea, I decide to do some research on reflective thinking and reflective thinking about research.  I found some ideas that weren't so different from my own, but I thought that my ideas were obvious and mundane so why would they be important to write about?  As a teacher, I asked my students to keep a writing journal-what was the purpose of that assignment?  Is it the same as this assignment?  Yes, after careful thought and consideration, I think that it is. 

According to Hume (2009) in her article "Promoting Higher Levels of Reflective Writing in Student Journals," reflective writing and journals are important in order for students to have  “…an awareness of their own learning  through reflection and a means by which they can monitor and further their own learning” (p. 2).

Creating metacognition or awareness of one's thinking is always a learning experience within itself.  Recognizing and analyzing our own thought processes will make us better researchers, and push us to ask questions about our research.  Asking questions will help to lead us to seek information , which is part of the research process.   This process helps us to find ourselves as researchers, which is what du Preez (2008) wants us to do (p.58). 

In her article, “Locating the researcher in the research: personal narrative in reflective practice,” du Preez (2008) quotes Bandura concerning reflective writing:

If there is any characteristic that is distinctively human, it is the capability for reflective self-consciousness.  This enables people to analyze their experiences and to think about their own thought processes.  By reflecting on their varied experiences and on what they know, they can derive generic knowledge about themselves and the world around them.  People not only gain understanding through reflection, they evaluate and alter their own thinking by this means. In verifying thought through self-reflective means, they monitor their ideas, act on them or predict occurrences from them, judge from the results the adequacy of their thoughts, and change them accordingly. (Bandura, 1989, p. 58)

We need to connect the dots and create this self-reflection.  As Bandura has recognized, it is important to know that thinking about our thinking helps us to better understand what we are studying and examine the reasons for our thinking.  Examining what we have learned or what we are attempting to learn is a large part of the process.  Additionally, thinking about the process is just as significant.  We must ask ourselves many questions, a few of which are-Where am I going with this research?  Why do I think this?  What is the goal of this research?  What am I looking to understand and/or find? and How will I apply what I have learned?

The goal of any type of reflective writing is the same-it is to make us think about the how and the why of the the learning that we are engaging in, which will give it meaning. 

Bandura, A.  (1989).  Social cognitive theory.  In R. Vasta (Ed.), Annals of child development, 6, 1-60.  Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.  Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

du Preez, Jan.  (2008). Locating the researcher in the research: personal narrative in reflective practice.  Reflective Practice, 9(4), 509-519.  Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Hume, Anne.  (2009). Promoting Higher Levels of Reflective Writing in Student Journals.  Higher Education Research & Development, 28(3), 247-260.  Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Research Journal Page 1

Research Journal Entry #1

After reading through the research models, including the ACRL standards, and viewing the research language presentation reflect on your practice of research to this point in your career as a student.  How do you research?  What strategies do you use that are successful?  What difficulties do you encounter?  Have you engaged in primary research?  Or is it primarily secondary research?  What strategies and methods do you hope to learn this semester?

I feel in a lot of ways that I have had an advantage when it comes to research since throughout my career as a student, ways of doing research have changed dramatically.  While attending college as an undergraduate in the late eighties/early nineties, I did most of my research by searching and reading through actual journals, not to mention microfilm.  It was a hands on experience of browsing through many, many journals and looking at reels and reels of film.  I found the journals that were relevant to the topic that I was pursuing and simply went from there.  The process then took a lot more time, lending itself to more reflection on ideas whether that was the intention or not. I view this as a different kind of thinking that was going on since the only reason to use the computer was to look within the card catalog.  The catalog brought researchers to key words or terms that existed in these resources.  Sometimes I would start out by looking for one particular topic, and seeing the keywords listed on the card in the card catalog would sometimes lead me to other places.  At times they were dead ends, but at other times, quite rewarding since other related topics would pop up, causing me to rethink my ideas and the direction in which I was headed. 

This kind of browsing and thinking enabled more of a wandering and browsing of the mind.  For me this would, at times, create an epiphany that could lead me in a better direction.  Of course at the time, databases were the extent of “online” research (for me anyway), and not all journals were yet available online.  My strategy hasn’t changed much since it is the same then that it is now—read, think, read, think, read, think!  I guess the way that I feel the thinking has changed for me is that utilizing online resources brings researchers very quickly to precise results. Unless a person is motivated to dig deeper, the lack of physical “browsing” will leave those other doors closed, and can also make it less likely that a researcher will happen upon another idea.  Am I making sense?

I am definitely a start in the middle type of person.  I don’t like to box myself in with a precise topic at the start of a research project.  I would rather begin with a more general idea of what I am looking to gain knowledge about, and then as I research, a more specific idea/topic will form and because I have already done some reading and thinking, it is easier more me to decide if my idea is feasible.  While reading through all of the different research models, I immediately can see that as a student, “Defining the information problem” (Big 6 1.1) is always the hardest part of beginning for me.  As Eisenberg states (2011), “It’s not necessary to complete these stages in a linear order, and a given stage doesn’t have to take a lot of time” (p. 2).  I understand and know this to be true, but many times I still will look at as assignment and get stumped before I decide to think about this part later and just dive into the research.   I have to fight the urge to begin at the beginning!

I have done some graduate work in the area of American Literature.  In my courses, I engaged in Primary Research when researching, exploring, and thinking about topics within literature.  In a previous research course that I took, we did not engage in any thinking about how we best do our research.  We simply just did the research.  Most of the course focused on properly citing works, and there was no critical thinking about the research process at all.  I feel that I did a lot more critical thinking about my research questions within my literature classes than I did in the research class itself. 

As a former teacher of English, I don’t know if literature lends itself more easily to original ideas, or if I just view it that way since that is my first love and it is an area that I enjoy exploring.  It is definitely an area that is one of my strengths, since I find it easier to recognize gaps in information about literature than in other areas. That is probably due to the fact that I can read and reread books and never tire of them, since I am able to still find something new in them each time.  I would like to improve my application of primary research in areas other than literature, and I think that this course will help me to accomplish that.

Eisenberg, Mike.  (2011).  What is the Big6?  Retrieved from http://www.big6.com/what-is-the-big6/