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Step Five:
Acquire Resources
Acquire resources such as personnel, instrumentation, hardware, software, and supplies.
Step Six:
Implement Research Project
Before data collection, decide who will do the collecting, where data will be stored or warehoused, who will store the data, and who will have access. Data should be stored in a secure location or system, especially when dealing with sensitive data such as student records. Collect data to help answer selected research questions.
For example data collected to during the eMINTS study included the following:
- formative or baseline data from teachers regarding technical support needed, professional development needed, existing skills; it was not possible to collect standardized test baseline data on students at the time, although this may be a good idea for other studies;
- teacher self-reported data to set up profiles of their technology usage;
- classroom observation data to help categorize teacher teaching practices (mid-point of second year); utilizing a checklist based in part on Bloom's taxonomy, took notes about occurrences in classrooms, about classroom discourse; some teachers had upwards of 20+ observations about their practice by end of study;
- attendance data, discipline referrals;
- parental data via focus groups to summarize what their experience had been with their kids, to talk about the intervention from their perspective;
- Establish a feedback loop and make adjustments to your implementation process by modifying ineffective strategies. For example, if you find that a research element such as a survey cannot be completed within the allotted time, you must modify the timeline and/or approach.
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