Nick Barter

Nick Barter

Nick is an academic with a focus on developing frameworks to allow corporate strategists to realise sustainable strategies and expanding online education to as many learners as possible

Location Griffith University, Australia

Activity

  • Great questions Lindi and no right answers. In the first instance, follow the path of least resistance it will allow you to build understanding.

  • Remember observation is great and if possible watch or observe with a child-like innocence. This will allow you to get past your own biases and think more freely. Unfortunately, none of us can escape our own biases, so we have to be conscious of this in our observations. Thus ideally have more than yourself observe. Also, remember our vision is not 100%...

  • With any method you choose for collecting data, make sure that you will collect the data you need to answer your research question. This requires ensuring we have interrogated our beliefs and also reviewed similar studies and their rationale for a particular method of data collection..

  • Exactly - and also we all have theories in our heads, thus grounded theory kind of fails at the outset - none of us live in a vacuum

  • Good start - but things that come to mind from looking at this question - Does the professionalism and achievements of our local town council meet the expectations of its constituents, and does the council receive the expected support and involvement from its constituents? - You will need to define for your research what you mean by professionalism? You will...

  • When researching with school children, the important thing is to consider the power dynamics. Are the children likely to say what they think, or what they think they should think? The power of the teacher and the adult is something that can often cloud research with school children. You also need to consider what permissions you require, perhaps from...

  • Do you know the best way to reach that audience? What do they read most?

  • Do you know the best way to reach that audience? What do they read most?

  • Good start Jim to have a skeleton framework - the challenge is now filling it ;-)

  • So the key question is - how will your study advance the area? What will it bring forward that is not currently been studied?

  • Natalia - thanks for sharing the start of your proposal - I think you need to consider more specifics re research questions - hence how you will measure pain, do you mean how many students - what specifically are you trying to achieve

  • Thanks - so when I look at your research questions - consider the following - what is utilisation? What is enhanced? What are readability skills? What is senior? - Hopefully what you can see is that I am trying to push you to be more specific

  • See my earlier comment

  • Hi there - your aim and questions in your document are a good start but they are very broad - try breaking each component of your question down and asking yourself 'how exactly will this be done' - I think this will help you get to more specific research questions and thus allow the identification of a methodology

  • Its great that you have done searches and found documents that can help

  • As they involve people, they should involve an ethics committee

  • I would have a think also about internal validity and maturation of the pupils - this is a challenge in this type of study - there are so many variables

  • Great find and worth a read - doesnt take long

  • This is not easy, as you have to think about what is knowledge and then what are different types of knowledge and try different variables and combinations

  • Its great to see all these research questions. They are all broad at the moment and through the process of this course and time they will need some refining so you can focus on what exactly will be researched, what will be dependent, independent etc. Good luck

  • Good to see you on the right track here Rolando, are those the only ones, or are there more? Have you consulted with colleagues?

  • Cate - I like your outlining of different variables that need to be considered - there are I am sure so many. Is there any research on the mental state of the patient too? eg more positive people heal more quickly?

  • @RossAlonzo Yes it could do Ross - but at my university we have set levels (not lecturer set levels)

  • Yes they can help but also note the context on the numbers matters and the context can be subjective - ie 2 is always 2, but depending on context 2 can be seen as good or poor performance. Hence its important to never lose the biases around the context and the paradigm within that

  • Whats the biggest mistake you have made? Or whats the one thing you keep doing which you wish you didnt?

  • I live in Brisbane Australia and listen to podcasts all the time. I think they are useful in designing great online courses for Higher Ed.

  • Thanks Martin - I will get the team to check this.

  • I tried the link - not sure I agree with it. But interesting none the less

  • Do you have a hypothesis that drives this? May sound silly but it will be helpful

  • I noted this - good start - perhaps consider if you have any hypotheses driving your research - ie people who lived then were just as anxious as us, their concerns about education, job security were just the same....perhaps try and think of some ideas to help you structure your review and also then help feed into your story ideas

  • Lots of research questions in this, unlikely that one study will answer them all - you will need to break this down into component parts

  • @IanCampbell So the challenge is how to test your theory....thoughts?

  • @ChrisHughes I dont think it can be when people are involved - but I think there is always likely to be an exception to that rule.

  • @MonicaTaylor Thanks for sharing this - I had a student who explored using this technique of pictures and responses. There is a literature on how to do it well

  • I think its always better to do both.

  • Nick Barter replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]

    Strange that isnt it - we are story telling animals - its all about stories for us humans..

  • What is your hypothesis for this change Eunice?

  • @MonicaTaylor Its a strange one really isnt it, we are story telling creatures and numbers mean nothing without narrative.

  • Notwithstanding all the good advice on interviewing - always remember you are just talking to people and make sure you have a list of points to probe

  • @FatimaKhaled That sounds interesting Fatima - what are you testing in your research - what hypotheses?

  • @KarenJames Karen - grounded theory is an interesting one - there are arguments for and against it. The argument against is that none of us can really approach the world with an absence of some theory or some hypothesis on how things work (in the broadest sense). Also none of us live in a vacuum. I hypothesise that if you wrote down some notes about what you...

  • @ChrisHughes Thanks for reaching out regarding your question, you are right to question causation versus correlation. However qualitative data in your example will not really help. If we think into your example, would interviewing people with cancer or smokers help explain what is going on and I dont believe it would. So in answer to the question you pose...

  • Bang on Karen and so often forgotten by researchers.