Well I probably said all that I needed to say on my general feelings about this MOOC in my last post so this is largely for the sake of completion. The final week of this course is a peer assessed piece of writing analysing the methods used in a sample paper. Turns out that I missed the deadline to write that – I may even have been working on my Week 7 post when that deadline fell – so this appears to be the end of the road for me. I could still go through and do the work but I found the supplied paper unrelated to my research and using methodologies that I have little interest in. The overall questions raised and things to be mindful of in the assessment instructions are enough.
- What method of analysis was used?
- How was the chosen method of analysis appropriate to the data?
- What other kinds of analysis might have been used?
- How was the analysed designed? Is the design clearly described? What were its strengths and weaknesses?
- What kind of issues or problems might one identify with the analysis?
- What are the key findings and conclusions, and how are they justified through the chosen analysis techniques?
And so with that, I guess I’m done with SOCRMx. In spite of my disengagement with the community, the resources and the structure really have been of a high standard and, more importantly, incredibly timely for me. As someone returning to study after some time who has not ever really had a formal research focus, there seems to be a lot of assumed knowledge about research methodology and having this opportunity to get a birds-eye view of the various options was ideal. I know I still have a long way to go but this has been a nice push in the right direction.