Independent/research Project For Final Year!

[Guest]

Grrrrr! Am getting lost for a focus for my final assignment/research project!

 

Having recently undertaken the full ECERS audit I want to use this as a basis for my research but am confusing myself trying to decide which aspect of it to focus on that will lend itself nicely!

 

The original audit, carried out in full alongside my lovely EYDW, was very positive in terms of environment and most other aspects. The two recurring themes that pulled down the overall score were lack of 'sustained shared thinking' or adults extending the childrens learning through their interactions and diversity/inclusion with reference to materials within the setting.

 

I'm thinking I can;

 

• 
  

action plan these areas and re observe/audit one or the other after actions have been put in place, if so which one?

• 
  

survey staff with regard to sustained shared thinking/inclusion

• 
  

survey staff regarding the whole process???

 

I DON'T KNOW!!!!! Am going around in circles! My tutor is astonishingly unhelpfull and just says any will be fine but without discussion to help me clarify my thoughts!

 

It's only 3,500 words, any help and ideas gratefully received!

[redjayne]

Sustained shared thinking and inclusion are both quite big things - am sure tackling just one of these will get your 3,500 words easily - personally I would go with inclusion as there is probably much more in the way of research etc for this than SST , maybe start with a 'where are we now' staff questionairre and build it from there as an action research piece ?

[Guest]

Thank you Jayne for your quick response, in my rambling forgot to mention it as action research! I think your right in terms of easier to find supporting materials, so would I use the audit results and perhaps staff questionairres,,,,,how to use the them then???? It's a tricky one as largely white middle class children, not even any on sen register this year.

 

What sort of questions do you think would be suitable? and then where to go from there, environment based/understanding of???

[redjayne]

you would need to find out about what the staff know at present - maybe using numbered scales 0-5 for specific questions i.e have you read and understood the inclusion policy , have you had any /lots of inclusion training , and some more open ended questions testing thier understanding of what inclusion means. You could possibly collate the results - maybe some would go well into a pie chart or graph, then you would need to try and fill in some of the gaps with training/staff meetings/ handouts /visits etc ( do you have anyone to tap inot in your Early Years team ?) and then do the questionairre again to see if there have been improvements.

 

For the literature review bit of the project there is lots of really good stuff out there about inclusion, and you may find some good journal articles through your University library too.

[Guest]

I am not sure if this is any help but I am currently undertaking my research project which is a total of 5,000 words. The best piece of advice I was given was to think 'small'. My initial ideas were way too big for the word count given and it has taken some time to drill down in order to give the subject the integrity it deserves. So really try and narrow down what it is you wish to find out. I am sorry your tutor is being unhelpful as this can be a daunting module of any degree course. I wish you the very best of luck.

 

mj-led

[Guest]

Thank you both!

 

trouble is am pushed for time now, largely due to the course being so badly managed!!!

 

Do you think it would be enough to use the ECERS observations for inclusion, action plan and make the neccessary alterations then re-audit/observe?

 

Trouble is the audit was great overall and was only scored, at 4, due to lack of multi cultural/ability books etc. Is this going to be enough to go on without interviewing or giving questionaires to the team???

[redjayne]

If you didn't have any other evidence of the 'gaps' like questionairres etc you might struggle to meet the action research criteria, and it would just be a report based on the audit IMO which you may well get marked down for. Do you not even have time to devise a quick questionairre or set of questions for your staff to do , if you are changing environment and change is going to embed you will need to show they are understanding the whys and wherefores too.

[Guest]

Thank you Jayne, I think your right and I do have time to sort this still! Think I'm just panicking now I'm so close to the end!!!