Reading Response 3

"Respond to how reading studies with detailed methods sections impacted your ideas about collecting data in a classroom observation setting."

This week, I start observing an environmental science writing-intensive class to collect data for our project. As I'm preparing to walk into this classroom / data collection site, I need to make sure that I understand the method of data collection and analysis. I've heard it said many times that the methods section of a paper is the most important part of a study. That's because the methods section has to account for all the variables in the study and explain how the data will be analyzed. In fact, collecting the data is actually the easy part because it can typically be done quickly.

 From reading the studies assigned in class, I've found that details and context are one of the most important points to be mindful of during writing. The writers we've read describe the context of the setting in elaborate detail, from describing the size of the university, to the resources available in the classroom. Understanding the target context benefits the reader because it helps the reader situate the study and envision how the data was collected. Additionally, the methods section describes how the data was collected, coded, and analyzed. Providing this information gives readers insight into the data process so that they can determine if the study was done well, and provides information for others to be able to replicate it if needed. 

As a non-participant observer, my data will be the information I remember from the class through jottings and then elaborated on through a more extensively written memo. This data will be coded and analyzed in our class sessions and hopefully we will see some interesting findings. As I walk into this next week's observation, it's important to remember that the methods section will inform and lead the entire study.