I scheduled my interventions to take place in unit 2, a unit that involves the whole Stage 1 group. I’m unit co-ordinator along with my colleague Kane Husbands, so I was able to integrate my interventions into the curriculum for the students. This meant that students who contributed to the data didn’t have to attend anything extra, rather the interventions took place within scheduled teaching hours.
This was important to me because I didn’t want to ask students for additional time off-timetable as this might mean data was skewed and not representative of the year. E.g. towards those who already had an interest in research and/or perhaps didn’t have a job outside class hours.
It also meant I was able to maximise data collection, as it was easy for students to opt in.
I have to say, my approach for ARP was very much heavy on the ACTION, since, as you see below, I have a lot of contact time with the students. In another time I would’ve liked to have collect and analyse more data on how the students felt during each of the research trips. Ultimately, I decided that I didn’t want to bombard the students with too much surveying, and I wouldn’t have the time to analyse so much data. Instead I decided to have two main data collection points – A& B – and integrating autoethnographic observations as well as the formally submitted data, I hoped I’d be able to get a general overview of how the interventions impacted student definitions of research.
Below is the unit 2 schedule – you can see that I decided to take the students on a trip every week for three weeks, every thursday (though only 2 of these officially form part of the ARP), followed by 1.5-2 week period within which they are asked to go on their own research trip.