Ultraversity Notes

In the type of action-led work-based inquiry undertaken during the degree course, the starting point is your job - something that you already know enough about to be able to identify areas for further development. Anyone involved in education or training probably already knows that there is a range of preferred learning styles including visual, aural and kinaesthetic styles.

Under the university ethics policy, you will not have time to get permission to collect data from students under 16. This applies throughout the degree course, as the university procedures assume that only graduates do research - and they have a much longer time scale.

The literature you have used already tells you the answers to some of your possible questions - and by using published research based on large surveys, you get much more objective views anyway. You don't usually need to carry out a survey to establish that there is a range of preferred learning styles in a group. It is useful to understand your own style, so that you can develop your weaker styles.

Possible data collection:
*keep a research journal - use one of the models of reflective writing to systematically record your observations.
*point a video camera at yourself (not students) to analyse what you do - but beware that analysis of video data is very time-consuming
*lesson observation targeted at your research questions

Don't be tempted to collect more data than you can use.
There is support for learning about ethics in the Plone site, workshops area.