Retrospective

As I finished typing up my SSHRC Program of Work, I was reasonably happy with my chosen area of inquiry and hypothesis but I had this annoying feeling that my plan of action/research methodology was still a little vague...well, because it was. I had a hazy idea of what I wanted to achieve but I hadn't spelled out all the parts of the puzzle, how I was going recruit participants, design my experiment conditions and obtain research proposal. With every successive blog post, and leveraging the great feedback I got from Glen I think was able to refine my ideas and scope and come up with a less abstract and more grounded in reality version of my research proposal.

I think the biggest take home from the class for me was developing my ability to communicate clearly, in a written document, what I wished to carry out with an experiment design and outline the steps I would need to take to make the research endeavour a success.

I had initially intended to conduct an ethnographic study of the online course experience but that is no longer feasible given that design has pivoted to become a comparison/contrast of the various modes of social interaction on MOOC platforms and how each of them impact course engagement levels. I also decided to go with a more qualitative analysis and think this will best inform the future research I undertake in this direction.