Learning by Doing - carrying out research

The literature review carried on through most of the next year or so. The next phase was writing my research methodology chapter. Now of all the writing this was the one I was dreading the most! Why? Am not sure but it could be that I always thought research methodology theory was dry and complex and hard to grasp. Maybe I had set up barriers for myself. I had difficulty with this chapter even when I did my masters. I used to shy away from teaching the research process as well. However I did make effort and support masters students and so kept myself from totally avoiding research.

I was thinking that I would be using the action research process as the plan was to roll of the online workshop I had developed. It would be evaluated and redelivered. The initial pilot would allow me to see if the tools of real time discussion as well as the data gathering were appropriate. But Rupert suggested that maybe I should be looking at the design based research approach as I was specially developing the experiments to gather my data. The idea was that this would be a formative experiment and then a series of workshops as further formative studies with the final summative one. I went around asking colleagues if they knew anything about this research methodology as this is comparatively new approach having been first developed in 1992. I found a few papers and started reading about it. Having made up my mind to learn about the research process and various theories I managed to read and understand various literature. Generally I found that I carried out lot of learning by myself and used my tutorials to clarify my understanding with discussion with Rupert. It was liberating to find that I did understand most of what I was teaching myself. I wrote up the chapter and left it to one side mistakenly thinking I had done a good job!!! Little did I know. But at this time I got engrossed in carrying out the experiments and coming across difficulties which mean that I had to rethink not only for my research but also in terms of the Argunaut project.

The workshop got participants from all over the world but things came unglued when people and to download and install specific tools which were MSN and Digalo. The workshop was of a short duration and so time could not be spent in preparing the participants to use the tools and to form a learning community. Despite these limitations it was a useful pilot and helped in developing further experiments. It also helped to gather initial information about my research questions. Again working in a research team was helpful in understanding how research projects are developed and gain the skills of carrying out research.

I took part in developing the experiments and data gathering. This participative approach within collaborative research is very good as I truly learnt working with the experts and took on more and more responsibilities. I found it helpful to write the first draft report of the analysis. Getting feedback from my supervisors who were team leaders for the research allowed me to gain confidence in my writing and analytical skills. During the Argunaut project I had yet another change of second supervisor as Maarten went to work in another university. I was introduced to Nasser Mansour who took over the research project from Maarten. Nasser is meticulous about detail and has passed on this obsession to me. The reports were written up and a lot of my thesis form parts of various reports of the Argunaut project.

Then I had to begin to think what linear text display tool would I use instead of MSN? Luckily at this point the research team got involved in another project called InterLoc. This was a linear text display tool and was ideal for my research. It had formed part of my literature review but at that time I did not have an opportunity to implement it. But with the InterLoc being run as a research project I could again use the opportunity to gather data relevant for my research questions from the experiments set up. I followed the same process as for the Argunaut experiments to gather and use the data for my research. The report writing followed and this time felt a little bit easier as I had got more skillful at writing. Not that I did not need the feedback for polishing the reports before submission.

These experiments formed three of the chapters of my thesis. These were written and rewritten a few times. The data is fairly wide and address many issues. How do I organise and structure the chapters to provide an easy read of the findings and also which will ensure all the research questions are addressed?