Sunday, May 24, 2009

Finals, and WHAT is Research, Pt. 1

To Ms. Laura....I'll eventually get around to answering your question that you asked regarding "research" on my last post.

Finals are over. I got a B in Calculus 1 and an A in English Composition 2. I was rather excited about both. Going into my english final, I had only recieved 3/5 papers back from the teacher. So I only knew that I had an 82.5% average for my papers. I really wasn't sure what my grades were in the class, because he wouldn't tell us a lot about how attendance and in-class work affected our grades...but apparently I did good enough, cause I got an A. Calculus 1 I was also very excited about. I had to get a 69% on the final to get a B, which I apparently got....I wish you could see the final, and see what score you really made, etc....

My senior recital is coming up rather quickly. Very scary, actually... 6 days. I have a total of 7 solos and 2 duets...solos have to be memorized...I can ...get through all but two of the solos by memory...but only 2 fairly decently. I'll make it, I know..it's just nervewracking. My hands were swollen so bad on Tuesday. I couldn't hardly grip anything or make a fist with either hand. It wasn't too hot. lol But they are better now, and I'm back to practicing and staring at my music for a few hours a day.

Okay...now...MY view of Research....
I saw "research" as....mm...an exploring of a topic, and then writing my conclusion about that topic. So, in the case of home schooling which I wrote about (and I believe I have posted on my other blog), I wrote my conclusion, based on a question that I asked at the beginning to get me jumpstarted. My question was "Is home schooling effective?" I looked at the history of homeschooling, the legality of homeschooling, the cirriculum available to homeschoolers, the academic acheievements of homeschoolers compared to their public school counterparts, the success of graduates after high school, and the satisfaction of homeschooled graduates and their parents after homeschooling. I came to the conclusion that "Yes, home schooling is a generally effective method of schooling, and has higher average academic achievement rating then other methods of home schooling." This view I expressed in my paper, not really including other viewpoints or bringing any "other sides of the arguement" into play. This was mainly because there WASN'T a lot of good evidence against home schooling. It was mostly people calling it "child abuse" and ranting about how "homeschoolers aren't socialized, won't know how to function in the real world, etc"....actual evidence (usually done scientifically, or using psychological studies, see Dr. Brian Ray, etc) goes directly against these claims. So in my paper, which is essentially my conclusion of the research I've done, I ignored these false claims, and only used evidence which actually had something to back it up.

I'll get to the "school" version of research in my next post....

1 comment:

Fopias said...

Your homeschool paper is not on your other blog yet. I want to read the finished thing, bits and pieces aren't as good as the finished product.