Reflection of this research
Doing this academic research in a supportive environment has changed the way I see the process of the research. Specially, the literature review segment of this research has changed my point of view on other pieces of literature review. For this research, I understood what I was looking for in the literature review instead of typically being confused on what goal I was trying to reach in past research assignments. The beginning of the semester I thought survey research was not as intricate as it turned out to be. I found myself interested in comparing data and survey results. When choosing the sources needed for evaluation, I chose what interested me the most. What would also grab my attention was results that were found such as teachers in secondary education believing that parents wanted little to no inclusion in their child’s education. What was found is that parents want to be involved in their child’s education but sense an invisible barrier between themselves and teachers. The sources I used also served as evidence to show what was found about family involvement leading to my choice to look into what affect education has on a parent’s involvement. With research, challenges always occur, and this study was no exemption. Once the class had understood what would be on the survey’s and what was being evaluated, they were sent out. 99 surveys were sent out and the class was intrigued to see what result we could find. However, no surveys were being returned. To overcome this, the professor’s helped by pushing the parents to fill out the surveys and overtime surveys were received. It started off with only seven respondents. Luckily, it finally turned into a total of 20. Another challenged appeared during the creation of the surveys. As a class, it was difficult to agree on the format of answers for the close-ended questions. The disagreement did not only exist in how many answers there should be, but also what the answers should be. To overcome this issue, it took two different classes to vote and agree on a choice. My overall attitude and perception about research had changed over course of this class. I feel more confident in my ability to do survey research and find what needs to be further observed. For this study, Rstudio was used to collect data and transform it into readable statistics for any audience to understand. I have only learned a couple of commands in Rstudio, but the ones I did learn I know will help me in future research projects and studies. Now, I believe I know what it takes to “think like a researcher”. I know what forms of findings I should look out for when creating a survey such as qualitative and quantitative findings. I understand literature review more and what purpose it serves in research. With the completion of this class and research, I find myself more equipped and ready to conduct research in other classes and future career opportunities.