A research journey benefits from some advance planning, even though the plans may change. This chapter introduces some topics and tools to help you prepare to do your research. A planning guide is included at the end of the chapter.
Remember that one step at a time is good walking.
-Chinese proverb
a few times before? In either case, it's important to consider your hopes for the research and how undertaking a research project may affect you.
Although intentions of research in practice include improving practice and documenting practitioner and learner knowledge, engaging in research can also be an opportunity to work with other practitioners, learn about research, develop research skills and learn about ourselves. The planning guide includes some questions to help you clarify and record your hopes.
I Stop Writing the Poem Tess Gallagher
to fold clothes. No matter who lives or who dies, I'm still a woman. I'll always have plenty to do. I bring the arms of his shirt together. Nothing can stop our tenderness. I'll get back to the poem. I'll get back to being a woman. But for now there's a shirt, a giant shirt in my hands, and somewhere a small girl standing next to her mother watching to see how it's done.
® 2002 by Tess Gallagher. Reprinted from Moon Crossing Bridge with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
It seems that no matter how much time we budget for a research project, it always takes longer than anticipated. Even when we are able to build research into day-to-day practice, it has a way of spilling over into other aspects of life. It can be quality of time that's needed for data analysis and writing.
Some ways to address time issues include planning "do-able" projects based in your practice, identifying timelines, integrating data collection to write when students are writing (Quigley & Norton, 2002, p. 13). Suggestions for integrating data collection into practice are included in Chapter 8. Still, you'll likely need blocks of time apart from your day- to-day work to complete your research, including time to reconnect with the research work.