I began my pursuit of secondary sources for my project in
the library database by playing with key words as the librarian demonstrated
for us last week. Since I am invested in what students think, I mainly rummaged through psychology journals that produced
articles that focused on student attitudes, writing motivation, and composition.
The outcome resulted in article titles that appeared to be very specific.
Unlike my interest in the general student body, articles were based on research
that had a particular student group in mind or studied how certain aspects
contributed to student attitudes. For example, students with a learning
disability are a particular group and gender is a certain aspect. Combining multiple
details like this creates titles such as, “How Female Students With a Learning
Disability in 10th Grade Feel About Writing Essays in the
Winter.”
I think these types of articles that tend to have a narrow
focus are still worth considering for my project. The information is about
students nonetheless. Take these instances for example: An article reported
that the aspect of race has no significance on student attitudes. On the other
hand, gender does seem to have a significance, which an article reported,
suggesting that females have more of a positive attitude towards language arts.
Lastly, despite the age of the student, lack of motivation is the primary
reason students experience writing difficulties. Together, these discoveries
teach me something new. It gives me a foundation to build on.
My exploration for secondary sources reveals an immense
supply of information to consider. Although it is all useful info, very few
sources provide an examination on a typical student’s attitude towards writing.
This makes me eager to interview my primary sources because they are current
students who can immediately respond to my questions regarding my topic.
Without this foundation though, I would have been overwhelmed with curiosity.
It’s possible my interview questions could have been overwhelming for my
interviewees too if I had no direction first.
Hey Casandra,
ReplyDeleteAwesome blog! I really liked how you discussed your search for secondary sources. I feel like I've been heaving the same problem because I'm also dealing with more of the psychological opinion side of things. I feel like many of my sources have been geared towards specific groups of students or have been too technical and haven't really been as opinion-based as I'm looking for. One thing I did find really interesting about your research is that gender does effect feelings towards writing. Specifically, that females were more favorable. I think this is something that has been true for a while and I wonder how much of it is society-based. With more push for girls in STEM classes, and a larger push in society towards acceptance and breaking barriers in general I wonder if we will see a slow shift in this and see more male students come to like writing.
I can play the video straight from my post, I didn't post a link. I don't know how to fix it if I don't see the problem on my end, sorry. I made it with Mac software (iMovie) if that means anything?
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