Woodhill Park Retreat - Articles - Research Resources

A simple guide to developing surveys.

no@spam.com (Dr. Jens J. Hansen) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:26:28 CST

A brief look at surveys. This article introduces a power-point show on how to design a survey. As viewers will find, there's a lot more to developing an effective survey than meets the eye.

A suggestion I'd seriously make is that readers may also find it useful to peruse the paper about approaches to research. That paper, like this resource, resides in the free research resources folder and it's just below this item.

How to progress your thinking about your thesis/research topic: Hansen's Heuristic Hexagon.

no@spam.com (Dr. Jens J. Hansen) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:52:42 CDT

This paper provides an account of a class activity that was undertaken with some research methods students which led to the development of a procedure that can help candidates frame their thesis topic. (Click here to access this very brief paper.) A slide show was subsequently developed that traverses the process. (Click here to activate that slide show.)

On Developing an Understanding of Approaches to Research

no@spam.com (Dr. Jens J. Hansen) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:43:19 CST

The trouble with research for most people is that it falls outside of their comfort zone. Research, therefore, becomes something we take for granted until the imperative to actually do some kind of scholarly or applied investigation envelops us. That's the time people begin to squirm more than just a little. Their need is to move beyond knowing about research to understanding how it all works and where it all sits in the scheme of things. They require, in order to achieve understanding, a framework that merges theory with principles of practice so that they locate what they wish to do against models of research and knowledge development.

This paper provides beginning and advanced researchers with such a framework for understanding. It captures some of my thinking about research which has evolved over many years and whcih became even more clearly crystalized for me as I wrote this paper.

Specifically, the commentary was developed as an accompaniment to a slide show I used for workshops at the César Chávez Institute (a community of socially engaged scholars working in partnership for social justice at San Francisco State University). Others, however, have found it to be useful so I thought I'd include it here.

The ideal way of using the material is to click on these links:

To see the notes and slides together as a PDF click here. You may want to print them off to use whilst you are looking at the slide show.
To view the accompanying slide show whilst reading, click here. Do note that some of the slides are automated so be measured in your clicking-on rather than hasty.
My suggestion is that you work through the slide show and then read the notes whilst you re-examine the slide show. Happy learning and do share this resource with others if you think it is worth-while.