Blog 8

Blog #8 Self Efficacy and the Final Research Paper

The final research paper is due in a couple of weeks. It is a major paper which requires planning, writing, and thoughtful integration of the ideas we covered during the entire semester. How are you approaching the completion of this task? What is your plan? How do you plan to complete the assignment in a timely manner? What are the specific tasks that you would need to do to get the work done? What’s your strategy and plan for the completion of this final paper?

 This has been my plan:

First, I started early, and by early, I mean as soon I my literature review was done. First I did another literature search related to my methods and scales. I was concerned about finding a good scale and I found and read several articles, which in turn lead me to a handful of scales. This was time consuming but I enjoyed searching for a survey that made sense for my research proposal. 

The second part of my plan was doing all of the assigned reading. The Rubin and Babbie text was very helpful and I used it as a guide when drafting my paper. I made a lot of little notes in the book and also made several pages of notes with page numbers that I could refer back to while drafting my paper.

The third part of my plan was taking good notes during class. The majority of the information in this class has been new to me so taking notes helped me understand and retain information. I refer back to my class notes often.

The fourth strategy I used was talking about my research proposal all of the time. I take a lot of walks with my husband and my cousin and I talked about my paper, and asked my cousin a lot of questions. Last year  I read this great book about how writers and artists organize their days and about 90% of them took a daily walk to contemplate their work.  I love this book!

This leads to my last strategy, which was simply giving myself time to think about what I was doing. So, from the very beginning of the semester I’ve felt this paper hanging over my head. I knew I had to have a plan because I am too busy with work, family, volunteer work and random consulting jobs I take to help pay my tuition. Starting early and incorporating class notes and the readings gave me the time to think and reflect and ask myself and others questions.

Finally, several of my past jobs have included the words “project manager”. I am good at planning and getting things done in an organized fashion. At least most of the time.