Organising Your Research Project

Go to Library, get a book to help with research project

"Doing your research project" - Judith Bell

Approaches to Research

Quantitative Data

• Statistical Data
• Numerical Results
• Surveys, questionnaires 

Qualitative Data

• Philosophy
• Theories

If your project is concerned with making, an entirely different set of research methodologies may apply.

Action Research

What sort of research applies to you?

Planning the Project:

•  Write down all questions that you want to investigate
•  Consider each on their merits and focus on two main questions (primary & secondary)
•  Write an A4 'first thought' sheet for each
•  What am I trying to achieve, what is the purpose of the study?  Is your question researchable?
•  Decide on a working title

Project Outline:

• Consider Timing
• Deadline - 12 weeks on friday
• Consider Holidays/Work/Life
• Make a week by week plan
• Think about your working title and the different component parts that needs researching.
• Allocate timings to each
• Draw up a project outline based on the above
• Allow generous time for initial reading and writing up
• Factor in Tutorials

40 credits: 400 hours work.  Spend about a quarter of that reading.


 Literature Search & Review

• Reading takes more time than you think 
• How much can you actually read in 100 hours?
• Start by trying to find out all the key texts on your chosen topic
• Focus your reading based on an initial assessment of this survey
• Find key texts and plan time to read these
• Find secondary sources/ criticisms of key texts (triangulation)
• Use journals (www.jstor.org) 

Reference correctly from the beginning!! 
Jot down what each book is useful for and key concepts and its harvard reference


Ethics

• Consider the ethical implications of whatever it is you are studying
• Does the research involve human participants? (have you taken care to be sure that no harm can be done to them - physically/mentally.
• Are you going to involve vulnerable, do you need consent?
• Will the study involve discussion of sensitive topics (eg. sexual activity, drug use?)

Referencing

• Start a bibliography immediately
• name, forename, date, place, publisher, page\

Questionnaires 

• Is a questionnaire the best way of investigating your topic
• If so, begin to word questions and discuss with your supervisor
• Avoid ambiguity, imprecision, assumption, also double, leading, presuming or offensive questions
• Consider questions, question type?
• Consider sample size, how many people?  Less than 100 isn't really a reliable source

Interviews

• Is this the best way to investigate topic?
• If so, begin to word questions and discuss with supervisor
• Structured or unstructured?
• How will you analyse questions
• Watch for bias

Observation

• Is this the best way?
• Decide exactly what you need to know?
• Request permission to observe
• Prepare and plan observation carefully
• Devise a suitable grid, checklist or chart.

Reflective Blog

• Consider what you put on the blog, don't just put loads of useless information up.
• Reflect 

Checklist

• Don't procrastinate 
• Plan research methods carefully
• Select the most appropriate research methods for the project
• Complete an ethics self assessment
• Complete an extensive literature review
• Document all stages of the process carefully
• Create detailed project outline, with timings and stick to it
• Get the most from your supervisor

How to Improve Art in Schools

To carry out some primary research and find out what real people think about how art is taught in schools, I am planning a few surveys.  I want to find out why people enjoyed art lessons or why they did not and how people think they could be improved.  I am considering sending out surveys to adults and perhaps trying to get a group of children to fill out.

Question Idea's I have so far:  (these will be developed)

• Did/ does art in school relate to your personal interests?
• Did/do you feel like you had an input in what you got to do/explore?
• Did/ do you feel that everyone in the class got equal encouragement and support?
• Were you taught that art is a broad subject area?
• Did/ do you feel that you had the freedom to explore your creativity?
• Did/ do you feel that art lessons in school offered you many creative experiences or a few limited ones?
• What do you think about time allocated for lessons? More? Less? Enough?
• What other creative subjects did/do they teach in your school? Drama, Graphics, Music, Textiles, Product Design

Changing Education from the Ground Up - Sir Ken Robinson

After my presentation last Friday Simon suggested to me to look up Sir Ken Robinson as he speaks about education, the problems with it and how we need to be more creative.

I have watched this short talk he did for the RSA which was really helpful to my research and I think I will definitely reference him in my research project.  What he had to say fits in really well with what I have been researching so far.

Below are my notes which I took from the talk.  What Ken Wilson had to say is very relevant to my research project which made it really interesting to watch.  I have taken down relevant notes and quotes which should be helpful when it comes to writing my essay.  His idea's of how

COP3 Direction Presentation

The Benefits of Encouraging Creativity and Imagination in Young Children.

The presentations on Friday were really helpful for me in seeing what approaches other people have taken towards their COP3 research and their titles.  I also felt that I got some really helpful feedback and am now more confident to progress with my research etc.

Topic:  The Benefits of encouraging Creativity and Imagination in young children.

With a theme of:  How we could improve the way that art and other creative subjects can be taught in schools so that children can experience creativity to their full potential.

Also the true meaning/misconceived meaning of what creativity actually is.

Creativity is not just limited to the arts, but my main focus will be within art.

A few reasons we should encourage creativity:

• Creativity helps with cognitive skills, for example learning maths and science, as it helps develop concentration skills
• Creativity promotes emotional development, creative expression provides many opportunities for expressing emotions and working through those emotions to gain relief and understanding of them
• Creativity also promotes social development and physical development
• Helps develop problem solving skills
• Helps people deal with change
• Helps people keep up with a rapidly changing world
• Helps people communicate their feelings in non-verbal and pre-verbal ways, for example, using gestures, movement and dance.
• Express thoughts by painting and drawing
• Everybody can be creative, not just those who are identified as "gifted"

Book 1:  The first book has been useful for me in learning the true meaning of creativity and how to provide a broad range of creative experiences

Book 2:  Useful for psychology of design for children and information about the beginning of the children's industry for toys, games, books etc

Book 3:  This book I am still reading but I am hoping that it will be helpful in learning more about current issues in art and design teaching.

Book 4:  This book includes examples of lesson plans, worksheets.  Looking at these from a creative perspective they seem quite dull and undesirable to engage with.  I intend to look at these and see how I could improve them.

I'm really interested in getting involved with as many art related community projects or programmes as possible.  I have had a little bit of experience in helping out in classrooms but I wish to get more involved so when I am talking about the theories and things I've learned I am more informed.  This will be good practice for myself anyway as I wish to possible work in a similar area in the future.

I have spoken in person with Gareth Wadkin who is in charge of organising the LCA outreach programmes and he is going to let me know of any taster classes etc which I may take part in.

Saturday Art School at LCA is also another class I would like to volunteer and help out with.  When I am there I would like to speak to the children and try and find out how they feel about creativity and how it benefits them.  (but speak to them in a way that it makes sense to them).

For the Practical Outcome I have suggested:

Using the theories and information which I have gathered about encouraging creativity and take that and design a lesson plan to teach the P1-P3 (Equivalent Year 1 - Year 3) class of Amisfield Primary School (The school my step-mum teaches at in Scotland).  I have had the OK from my step-mum and the head teacher there.  My aim is to get the children to be as creative as possible and then I will document it somehow, possibly in a book, or a calendar.  I also wish to interview the pupils and the teachers about creativity and what they thought about my lesson.  I would like my lesson to be enjoyable for everyone and for everyone to understand that they can all be creative.

Feedback from COP3 Direction Presentation

I feel that I received positive feedback from Simon and the others after my Presentation on Friday.  They recognized my title as being appropriate and relevant in today's Society.  Simon suggested I look at Sir Ken Robinson as he does talks on this subject.

Moving Forward:

• Speak to Marketing about helping out at Saturday Art School
• Complete Survey
• Consider Practical element and begin making plans.

The Benefits of Creativity

Information gathered from:  http://www.handsonscotland.co.uk/flourishing_and_wellbeing_in_children_and_young_people/creativity/creativity.html
This website has been very helpful in finding out the definitions of creativity and just how much it can affect a persons personal and intellectual growth.  I have tried to be selective with the information which I have posted here however I find the majority of it interesting and necessary.

Being involved in creative activities is fun and absorbing for children. Evidence suggests that it helps children to have positive experiences and develop important characteristics and abilities such as:

	Appreciation of different ways of looking at the world
	Collaboration – being keen to work together as a team
	Communication – developing better communication through talking, listening, writing or pictures
	Concentration – focusing on what they are doing
	Developing good relationships – working together and making new friends
	Discipline – developing self-control through a requirement to practice (for example: some artistic activities, such as playing a musical instrument, need practice)
	Emotional intelligence – being able to express emotions
	Empathy – understanding what it can feel like being someone else (particularly through role play drama activities)
	Imagination – bringing ideas to life and adding excitement to their world
	Independence of thought – discovering things for themselves
	Interaction – being involved in a group and having peer support
	Intrinsic motivation – participating in something for pleasure rather than external reward, so wanting to do it for themselves
	Language – increasing vocabulary, reading and writing skills
	Open-mindedness – being open to new ideas
	Physical activity – participating in activities that encourage movement
	Positive emotion – having fun and enjoying what they are doing
	Problem-solving – being able to explore different solutions.

These characteristics and abilities have been shown to lead to:

• A sense of purpose
• Achievement
• Confidence
• Development of strengths, talents and interest
• High aspirations
• Self-respect
• Sense of belonging.

Case Study

A series of creative arts projects in English schools with pupils aged 11-16 years had a positive impact on the learning and behaviour of the pupils. The projects involved creating graffiti art works depicting cities in the future, recording rap music in French and creating a selection of artwork and performances related to VE day or Japan. The main outcomes were:

• improved language and literacy skills
• an increase in motivation
• a decrease in behavioural problems
• increased confidence and desire to learn
• a greater awareness of opportunities available to them after school
• an improvement in self-confidence, especially among the less able pupils.

One pupil said: "I really liked this week because it made me realise that learning can be fun."

Furey, B. (2006). Can creative projects improve the language and literacy skills of our pupils? Research Summary from the Teacher Research Conference 2006.

Below are examples of the benefits of two specific areas of creativity: music and messy play.

The benefits of music

	Where words fail, music speaks.
	Hans Christian Anderson

A number of studies have outlined specific benefits of music for babies’, children’s and young people’s wellbeing. For example:

• Music can build powerful connections between parents and babies. The joy experienced as they share the music helps strengthen their bond.

• Young children are attracted to musical patterns and structure. Music introduces children to the sounds and meanings of words and helps strengthen their memory skills.

• In adolescence, music makes a major contribution to the development of self-identity and is a useful source of support when young people are feeling troubled or lonely.

• Playing a musical instrument can lead to a sense of achievement and increased confidence, persistence in overcoming difficulties and self-discipline.

• Singing has particular benefits on the immune system, due to deep breathing, good posture, improved mood and stress reduction.

The benefits of messy play

We can encourage very young children to be creative through messy play. Messy play, (e.g. sand pits, paddling pools, finger paint) has been found to be very beneficial for babies and young children’s development of thought and creativity. In particular it helps to develop concentration and problem-solving, conversation skills, curiosity in the world, imagination and cooperation.

	Play is our brain's favourite way of learning.
	Diane Ackerman

Messy play does not usually have a focus on making something. This leaves the child free to explore all possibilities and enjoy the creative process. It is important for us to watch and listen to the child’s explorations and inventions as this promotes a sense of security. It also gives the child greater confidence to take risks if they know we are nearby.

Case Study - Creativity in Scottish Schools

Creativity Counts was a project aimed at supporting and fostering the development of creativity in classrooms in Scotland. The report, Portraits of Practice, describes 18 projects in schools across Scotland, giving details of the ages of children and aims of the project; how the project was organised and what happened; reflections on how creativity was encouraged; and the benefits of creativity found.

Examples of projects included: ‘Our Ideal School’ where children collaborated to think about, plan and build a 3D model of their ideal school, and ‘The Cool Project’ where children were encouraged to think about healthy eating and create an exciting and original healthy ice cream.

Some of the benefits of the projects were:

Pupils:
showed motivation, enthusiasm and enjoyment gained confidence in using their imagination showed a positive attitude towards the project achieved success, with the understanding that mistakes are an inevitable and important part of learning.
Teachers:
found significant changes in classroom dynamics were able to model creative behaviour enjoyed themselves.

 Refer to Website for further Information http://www.handsonscotland.co.uk/flourishing_and_wellbeing_in_children_and_young_people/creativity/creativity.html

The Importance of Creativity and how to Foster it.

This article has helped me to deeper understand how creativity can help young children develop in many different ways.

http://www.loveplayandlearn.com/2012/07/the-importance-of-creativity-and-how-to-foster-it.html 

Creativity should not be underestimated. Creativity helps teach cognitive skills such as mathematics and scientific thinking. Creative thinking involves imagination, basic use of the scientific method, communication, physical dexterity and exertion, problem posing, problem solving, making interpretations, and using symbols which help with future literacy skills.

 1-Creativity promotes emotional development-Creative expression provides many opportunities for expressing emotions and working through those emotions to gain relief and understanding of them. To help your child do this you could encourage a child who is angry to draw or paint a picture of how they are feeling. You could play varied types of music that invoke different emotions and then ask your child how the music makes them feel.

2-Creativity promotes social development- In young childhood, creativity is often a social act. Singing, dancing, puppetry, and theater all teach the child to pay attention to others as well as develop an understanding of social rules like give and take, and cooperation. Have a dance party with other children or have the child and their friends put on a play or puppet show.

3-Creativity supports physical development-Working with art materials such as crayons, scissors, paint brushes, play dough and paint promote fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination. To promote gross motor skills try dancing, mural painting, theater, or large construction projects like building things with boxes.

4-Creativity supports language and literacy development-By engaging in creative play or projects,

children can learn new vocabulary words as well as learn to associate pictures with words. As mentioned above try playing different kinds of music and creating a conversation with the child about how it makes them feel; this will boost language expression and understanding. Expose your child to plenty of instruments and talk to them about their favorite one and what sound each instrument makes. Ask them open ended questions about their art work such as “how did you feel when you drew this” or “how does this painting make you feel?”

5-Creativity promotes cognitive development- Creative activities help children to develop attention skills and cognitive learning. Their imagination is in full use and it encourages them to come up with new ideas and to think outside of the box since creativity involves exploration and problem solving. Through creative activities such as playing with play dough, children can learn pre-math skills such as the concept of less and more. When children match shapes or colors in their creations they are learning the math skill one to one correspondence. Creative activities can help them learn about grouping and classification, physical properties of objects, and cause and effect. Painting and play dough are all great ways to explore these concepts.

There are four components of creativity as described by Psychologist Ellis P. Torrance: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.

 

Fluency is the ability to produce a number of different ideas. To promote fluency provide children with plenty of opportunities that stimulate the thought process. Ask open ended questions and questions that ask the child’s opinion. Encourage the child to explore and experiment and this will enhance cognitive growth.

 
Flexibility is the ability to approach different situations and develop solutions from a number of different perspectives. Foster flexibility by allowing plenty of opportunities to explore and experiment. Allowing children to experiment and make mistakes unleashes their creative thinking and a sense of wonder. They feel free to imagine, invent, create, and try out new ways to do things. Asking questions during an activity or when a problem arises such as “how is another way we could do this or solve it?” encourages children to think outside of the box. 

Originality is the ability to have a new or novel idea. To promote originality, provide a variety of supplies and experiences in which children can use their imagination and create. By painting or constructing something out of play dough they are creating something out of nothing.

Elaboration is the ability to extend ideas. Give children new ways of doing old ideas and activities. For instance, providing pipe cleaner and other items to stick into play dough would allow children to elaborate in their play.

The meaning of Cognitive Learning

Information taken from http://library.thinkquest.org/26618/en-5.5.3=cognitive%20learning.htm

What is cognitive learning?
 
Not all cases of learning can easily be captured by classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Learning would be extremely inefficient if we had to rely completely on conditioning for all our learning. Human beings can learn efficiently by observation, taking instruction, and imitating the behavior of others.

"Cognitive learning is the result of listening, watching, touching or experiencing."

Cognitive learning is a powerful mechanism that provides the means of knowledge, and goes well beyond simple imitation of others. Conditioning can never explain what you are learning from reading our web-site. This learning illustrates the importance of cognitive learning.
Cognitive learning is defined as the acquisition of knowledge and skill by mental or cognitive processes — ;the procedures we have for manipulating information 'in our heads'. Cognitive processes include creating mental representations of physical objects and events, and other forms of information processing.

How do we learn cognitive?
 
In cognitive learning, the individual learns by listening, watching, touching, reading, or experiencing and then processing and remembering the information. Cognitive learning might seem to be passive learning, because there is no motor movement. However, the learner is quite active, in a cognitive way, in processing and remembering newly incoming information.

Cognitive learning enables us to create and transmit a complex culture that includes symbols, values, beliefs and norms. Because cognitive activity is involved in many aspects of human behavior, it might seem that cognitive learning only takes place in human beings. However, many different species of animals are capable of observational learning. For example, a monkey in the zoo, sometimes imitates human visitors or other monkeys. Nevertheless, most information about cognitive learning is obtained from studies on human beings.