The three chapters that I've found the most helpful in Creswell so far are "The Purpose Statement," "Research Questions and Hypotheses," and "The Use of Theory." I've of course been reading through Creswell with my very inchoate thesis in mind as well as a paper I'm presenting at IWCA next month. These chapters have helped me determined what sort of research I'll need to be doing; while at first I would pay more attention to the qualitative sections, I've come to realize that at least for my IWCA paper, I will be using more of a mixed methods approach. I plan "to obtain statistical, quantitative results from a sample and then follow up with a few individuals to probe or explore those results in more depth" (100)-- or at least I do now after reading "The Purpose Statement." My plan for this paper is to create a survey inquiring about student's use of multimedia while writing papers, specifically their use of sites like Facebook and Twitter, and distribute it to students either via Facebook (figured that would be appropriate) or via the Writing Center, but I wanted to get more detailed data from a few individuals, so this chapter helped me to realize that a mixed methods approach may be the way to go (and yes, I still have to write this paper that I'm presenting next month, don't judge me.) The chapter on research questions and hypotheses definitely helped me more with my own thesis in mind, since my research will be stemming from a specific research question to narrow down my topic. The chapter on theory also will be helpful in terms of my thesis as I search for a theoretical lens to guide my study.
I would like to read your paper on multimedia while writing papers when you are done with it (I would never judge you!). I have also found a lot of help with my own research, which is similar to yours (I am focusing on the use of new multimedia with therapeutic writing for Veterans).
ReplyDeleteI think an interesting statistic to formulate for your mixed methods design would be to show the different ages of the students who utilize new media for writing papers - is there a correlation with age and the different uses of Facebook, Twitter, etc? I utilize Facebook for writing papers, but only to connect with other writers; a younger student (I'm only 29, but I feel old!) may be more extensive in his or her use of social media. What are the ages and how do they correlate?