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Youapos;ve been in this program for over a month now. Whatapos;s stood out for you most so far, and why? When are you happiest, and why?

Initially, I thought research was going to entail interesting and constant discoveries. After a few workdays, I found it tedious and rather bland. However, as more workdays passed, I began to appreciate the whole research process. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance to accomplish finding the answer to the research question. This research program is TRULY a learning experience because of the questions that we constantly think about. What stood out for me the most so far is evaluating middle school studentsrsquo; sheets. We spend a lot of time modifying the coding scheme because there are many ambiguities that must be clarified. Discrepancies between our coding will, therefore, eventually become minimized and approach a near perfect agreement.

I am the happiest when all the girls meet up on Wednesdays. When I have my own individual time coding, it gets pretty lonely. =(. Our group meetings are a way for us to get more things accomplished by interacting and discussing our findings. Yoursquo;d be surprised what kind of things we discover such as little misunderstandings and disagreements within the studentsrsquo; texts. We conclude by either coming to an agreement, or we discuss our coding issues with our mentor.

This week, for your RA journal, think a bit about your faculty memberapos;s
research design. What are the biases/limitations of your data/methods? Is the evidence youapos;re gathering useful or are you just amassing it? Have you encountered challenges to your advisorapos;s perspective from other researchers?

I believe that the main limitation to our data and methods, as shallow as it sounds, is the grant money our research program receives. As our mentor mentioned before during his mini-interview with us research assistants, there are so many portions that must be attended to that there must be a sufficient amount of workers and materials. This is necessary to find an answer the most efficient way possible. Secondly, other limitations include the possible hindrance from the middle schoolersrsquo; learning experience by acknowledging the fact that theyrsquo;re being recorded. Biases are inevitable because of the coders that modify the coding scheme. How can we determine whether the students are actually making a sophisticated answer as opposed to a common sense answer? Regardless of its complexity, we have to decode their thought processes. We try to make the coding scheme as reliable as possible by depending on a group of people. After the coding process is over, I wonder what the next step is going to behellip; I can see that coding will establish a basis for finding the answer, but how do we really find the most efficient way that middle schoolers can learn science?
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The evidence we gathered is useful because we are currently decoding the middle schoolersrsquo; thought processes and are constantly updating the coding scheme. We are already in the process of digitizing tapes and copying DVDs. We have encountered challenges to my advisorrsquo;s perspective by the ambiguities we find when evaluating the studentsrsquo; sheets. For example, when students refer to oxygen, are they thinking of oxygen at the molecular level or are they just looking at it as air? How do we know if studentsrsquo; thought processes are sophisticated enough? Itrsquo;s difficult to score students especially when some responses go in between categories. Do they deserve a lower or a higher grade? These questions are answered when we have group discussions.

-Camille Paunon


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