Mood:
not sureTopic: Research questions
So, this is the first entry of my research journal, and I have tried to procrastinate this moment for the longest while, but the time has come. Now, I am blank as what to write. Probably, first up I should write what the tasks I have to do. Well, first up there is the finding the research question. I had one which was:
"Are linear programming software perceived as computational vs learning tools by differing university discipline lecturers in operations research based courses?"
However, James and Doug pointed out some problems in trying to conduct that survey such as trying to get a good response rate and contacting these lecturers. My initial idea was that I can send packages to universities and let them distribute it to the course lecturer and let them reply and send it back to me. Gary however (in my DTZY840 proposal) asked why I couldn't do it through email. That seems a legitimate question, and I guess I can do that still.
A problem however, I sense that James wants the research grounded in some literature, and I am not quite sure how grounded I can get this research in the literature since there are so few articles on LP software. As such, James as suggested that I look at the challenges of teaching LP. I am also having the problem of seeing where Kolb LSI and the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) is going to fit into the Masters, although I have a better view of it in the Ph.D or quite possibly thinking that I can stick it somewhere into the Ph.D. I will have to see what insights I gain from Linda when I meet her on Thursday.
My problem is that I want the master's to be a survey based research since I am sure I can cope with that. However, I need to link the masters to the Ph.D, I want it to be the basis of my Ph.D. I however, want to study intermediate steps in software, I have made the assumption that only if the software is being used for a teaching purpose that intermediate steps will be used and as such want to see if there are any people even using the software for teaching. Doug has suggested that I find a few enthusiasts and see what they think about the software - not sure exactly what I am suppose to ask them.
As such, I am floundering trying to find a research question, about 1-2 months ago I was confident I had my research question, but now I am not so sure. I hate feeling this uncertainty. Anyway, probably with more reading, I can figure out some solution.
