A Research One for Nate

Nate posted an entry called Education Research over on his blog Cognitive Dissonance and it got me thinking (which I suppose is Nate's goal in all of this). Not only did it get me thinking, but it also got me connecting things in my own mind - many of which were thoughts inspired by other blog entries.

For example, profgrrrrl brings up the concern in Things that puzzle me, #429 (from her blog which has the best title ever - Playing School, Irreverently) about the need to submit four copies of a manuscript when the submission is electronic. I too faced this in the past twelve months when on two instances I had to submit via snail mail an electronic copy of a manuscript and four copies were requested. I wasn't sure exactly what to do, so I burned the electronic copy to a CD Rom and then sent four paper copies as well. Why I couldn't just e-mail it or have them make their own copies, I'm not sure - but as a doc student these are questions I'll leave to someone with tenure. But then again, I guess this is more along the lines of the discussions that we have about publication today and in the future - see Picking Up on an Old Idea.

Anyway, I'm still at my dissertation research site for one more week (having been here for the past three). Given that I have been involved with this group of students for the past five months, with student at this school for the past year and a half, and with students who take courses from this virtual school for the past five years, I'm not sure how to respond to Nate's concerns. I know that one of my own advisors is big on the notion of developmental or design-based research, because it is done in progressive cycles that allow for improvements within that which is being studied - this way those being researched get the benefits too, not just the researcher. But that doesn't really address Nate's concern about funding in this climate of experimental design, does it?

Tags: graduate student, graduate students, graduate school, higher education, education