As I have continued developing the Research Methods Review website over the past few days, I have thought increasingly about how I can best organize and present the pertinent information to visitors to best facilitate learning.  While I do not intend for the website to be an entire online statistics textbook, I want for there to be enough useful information and resources to help students prepare for research methods classes.

Along those lines, I feel that I have to maintain a balance between making the website too choppy and brief on the one hand, versus creating a virtual information dump on the other.  What I am also realizing by virtue of this course is that how I learn (and thus develop the site) may be entirely different than how others learn.  As I continue developing the website, I will try to be more cognizant of this reality. 

If I were to instruct others how to develop a learning resource such as this, I would suggest possibly consulting some books or other resources that examine various adult learning styles, and determine how they could incorporate as many methods as possible onto the site.  What the website design challenging is not knowing fully what the users will want or need in the form of research methods review.  Perhaps I should bring this up in class discussion and get fee

I really enjoyed reading the Kember et al. article on Reflection the other day for class.  It was quite fascinating because in my teaching, I constantly stress the importance of reflection to students. However, few people (including myself) actually stop to really think about what that means.  I also felt that the article had great bearing on my research project this semester. 

Reflecting back on my initital learning experience in reserach methods (taking EDUC F65 in my first master's degree program around 2002/2003), I quickly realized that most of my time was spent in non-reflection.  I simply tried to memorize theories, formulas, and terms with little thought towards their application or wider meaning.

However, now that I am older as well as a doctoral student, I have noticed that I am taking more time to reflect on my learning.  I am currently reading the book How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education to re-learn introductory research methods and to essentially learn how to learn research methods. As I read the book, I find that it is much easier for me to reach reflection than it was in the past with my EDUC F65 course.

What helps to facilitate this process is that I can apply all of the material I am learning to my future dissertation topic.  Thus, it allows me to apply the concepts I am learning in a way that was not possible when I was taking the course as a master's student.  I will be interested to see if I can reach critical reflection at some point in this process.

In reading the research methods textbook, I have also noticed that I tend to absorb the material better as I read leisurely as opposed to having the stress of an impending quiz or test hanging over me.  I would like to go into the adult learning literature to see if there is any research that deals with this dynamic.  As I go into the more complex quantiative material, I will be interested to see if this trend keeps up or if I will not be able to absorb the more difficult material as easily.   

I have spent the past couple of weeks developing the Research Methods Review website.  I have searched the web for online research methods tutorials and have found some really good resources for use on the site.  I also just contacted Dr. Kim, who teaches research methods courses for the W&M School of Education, to set up an appointment to discuss the project and obtain her feedback.  I am interested to learn what resources she would recommend for use on the website as well as for my own personal preparation for research methods courses.

Recently, I also began reading an introductory research methods textbook called How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education (6th Edition, 2006) by Jack R. Fraenkel and Norman E. Wallen. I completed Chapter 1 last evening. I am very interested to see (as an adult learner), which type of resource works best for me in relearning introductory research methods.  After I read the textbook, I plan on completing some online tutorials to compare and contrast which method (books or online resources) suited my personal learning needs the best. 

Thus far, I have found that reading the textbook for my own self-directed learning purposes creates a quite different dynamic than reading the book as an enrolled student in a research methods class.  In this SDL capacity, I can read at my own pace and do not have the prospect of quizzes and tests hanging over me. So far, I have found that I can retain the information better utilizing this SDL approach.  However, I'll have to wait and see if that dynamic continues as I get into the more complex, quantitative material.   

As I continue on with this project, I am also very interested in putting my own learning experience into the larger context of self-directed learning research that we have discussed in class.  I plan on consulting the SDL articles we have read regularly to see how the themes, concepts, and research in those pieces compares with my own experiences.  I will start posting more comments about that process shortly.