Doctoral Supervision in Virtual Spaces: A Brief Paper Summary

Continuing to read #5Papers a week, I just came across this fascinating study that relates to my own research on doctoral learning and doctoral supervision:

1/ I read Maor, Ensor, & Fraser (2015). Doctoral supervision in virtual spaces: A review of Continue readingDoctoral Supervision in Virtual Spaces: A Brief Paper Summary

Literature Review Tracking Tables (DRAFT)

UPDATED on September 22, 2013:

method_of_inquiry_table350

These tools were again revised, with the current version on my Research Tools page.
Feedback is always appreciated.

ORIGINAL POST:

In my ongoing work to help my graduate research students better understand, assess, and use research, I have updated two tools to help navigate and track the literature. As I recently did with my Research Evaluation Tools for Articles in the Social Sciences, I am also seeking feedback and help with getting these specific enough to be useful, though broad enough to be flexible.

The Method of Inquiry Table is meant to track what databases or sources are queried to ensure completeness and a systematic approach to the literature. As is often the case, when we search the database resources, we are not always systematic in the ways we track what we find, and in the process run the risk of searching one database for some keywords, while accidentally omitting the same process elsewhere.

literature_review_table350The Literature Review Table  is for the next step, namely once we find literature and have read some of it. Who can remember everything we read, and what we find valuable and want to use in parts of our write-up? That is what this tool is for, so we include in it aspects of our work for what we find when we evaluate the literature.

I have used these two tools before, and now want to share them in the spirit of gathering feedback to improve them so they more readily meet the needs of developing researchers. Feedback, suggestions, and comments are most appreciated in this mini-project.

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

To the Literature . . . Get Thee to the Literature!

Borrowing a not-so-clever allusion to Hamlet from the Great Bard himself, yet without the anger and other baggage he brings (!!), I am now turning my attention to writing the draft chapter of my literature review and conceptual framework. I set myself another ambitious goal, this time to have this section drafted in two weeks. Hey, what better way to celebrate Leap Year than by planning a tangible deliverable for February 29!

I am coming off the efforts of submitting my chapter 1 draft to my supervisors very late last night (or early this morning, depending on how you see the time), so am on a high of diving into my writing with full gusto. While I am writing these sections now even though I am long-finished with my data collection may confuse some educationalists, but there is indeed a method to my process (though that is for a future discussion). Since starting seems to be the hardest part of a thesis, no reason to slow down at this point.

Suffice it to say I will now bridge the literature to my area of inquiry, and have something to submit for review in two weeks. Hey, I can do that!