I've got this SOOOOOOOOO wrong, please help with presenting research findings

[WethreebobKings]

Okay so the description of what I what I had to do was:

essay 3000 to 3,500 words on some aspect of music education. This needs to show evidence of research and/or original thinking.

My assessor now wants a bibliography (which was not mentioned ever) showing which other research documents I have read (which was also not mentioned)and discuss these.

I realise that the whole of mumsnet is probably thinking "silly girl - fancy not knowing you needed that", but this has genuinely taken me by surprise as I have flown through the other elements and courses using the same layout and style. I got a distinction for my paper from the college of education, which was worth the same number of points as this one.

This close to Christmas and the end of term I just want to throw in the towel really.

Oh no! Thry should have made this clearer.

Is this the paper you wrote about music classes for families?

It sounds as if they want you to mention work done by other people on the same subject. Assuming this exists (!) you could work this into the introduction. "X found this, Y found that, Z commented... etc".

Then you describe what you did (or propose to do), just as before, but adding in bits showing that it's either better than XYZ or at any rate takes these previous views into account, perhaps solving problems which they mention.

At the end of the essay you list the sources of your quotes from X, Y and Z.

A bit of a faff, but you shouldn't have to spend too much time on it.

Not sure if this is relevant, but anyway!

Yes it's my family class research - I was kind of going on the "original thinking" angle partly because I'm not convinced any similar research exists, but not being able to find something is awful - I wonder if it doesn't exist or if I just can't find it.

I did refer to several parenting books widely read by NZ parents on the topics of twins and sibling rivalry, and linked the advice into them to what I did in the classes. I put them in footnotes - so I guess they go in the biliography instead?

I wondered if your stuff was more "original thinking" type work. It does say and/OR!

The sibling rivalry stuff sounds just right to put in a bibliography.

I would make a point about mentioning the lack of other research, because that highlights how original your work is.

It's possible that someone has published something similar in Polish in the "Journal of Sbrxzbzjig", but if it's not accessible to you, then it's not accessible to other non-Polish-speakers either. So what you have to say is still new and important.

I would just check (if you haven't already) that there's nothing relevant in the mainstream literature - the kind of thing an average music teacher would read.

How "original" does original thinking have to be? I interviewed one of the leading people in the field (the other one is my examiner - so presumed she was off limits), I interviewed other preschool music teachers, mothers and the children themselves. I ran 6 months of classes and kept notes of my findings.

If it says and/or - it should mean it.

I have asked for the assessment criteria (which they probably should have supplied anyway as it's so different from what I've done) - I'm not doing anything - other than acknowledge that I've got the email - until I know that I really have got the wrong end of the stick.

I am the first person to do the exam - so it could be that the examiner has got it wrong [hopeful emoticon]

It could just be that I only have to make it clear that I am employing original thinking and put my footnotes into a bibilography instead [clutching at straws emoticon]

I know nothing about this kind of teaching, but imo what you've done sounds amazing, and tons better than just writing about stuff that other people have done.

I think you're suffering from doing a new course which hasn't had all the bugs ironed out yet. (I've done one of those and I think it does take a little trial and error on both sides to get everything clear.) I would definitely challenge the and/or thing for example.

Here's hoping you won't have to change too much - it sounds quite likely to me, actually, rather than clutching at straws!

If I'd thought for a moment that they wanted me to just review and rehash other people's work then I wouldn't have done this course. I said in my proposal that I was going to do primary research.

I agree: what you're doing is so much better than recycling someone else's ideas. If you were a student of mine I'd be delighted at this level of practical, original work.

What I suspect is that your examiner has been given a marking form and that having a bibliography is one of the items on the form. You just have to have a bibliography so they can tick the box.

However, as you say, they should have given you a copy of the marking form too - or something similar - so that their expectations and yours would match up properly. I would complain strongly about that if I were you - in a nice way, obviously - but you're in the right here.

To be fair it does say "available from the examination secretary", however all the other ones just turned up in the mailbox and I was on the right lines for all of them.

Argh! Six months work! Argh!

"As it stands your essay is an interesting account of your experiences"

It's not like it's a drug that works or it doesn't - of course it's got to be an account of my experiences, I can't do a double blind trial or anything.

I'm now wondering if really she is just being all official but what she is really saying is "give me a bibliography and rework the first bit slightly and I'll pass you".

Here is the relevant bit - it does contradict the document I was working on.

"Research should be an important aspect of the essay. Sometimes when a point is raised, it would be desirable to support it by referring to specific research. The source of the research should be clearly identified (the journal etc, date of publication, author etc).

There is also an important place in an essay for the candidate?s own opinion, points of view etc. Candidates may also wish to question aspects of research they have read and/or present points of view based on their own experiences. It should be stressed that every small detail does not need to be research based."

Had a bit more of a think and maybe education research generally will throw up more relevant stuff than trying to find music research. Then I could show how what I had discovered fitted (or not) with the current research.

So I need to find

Teaching twins (preferably preschool)
Teaching your own child (pref preschool or at least new entrant/primary.

And they need to be on the internet, because I only have Friday afternoon with a baby sitter (and no car - and if I got the bus I wouldn't have any time to read anything before I had to come home again).

There's a search engine called google scholar which will link you to research papers on the internet.

Here

Have you cited the interviews formally in footnotes/endnotes?

E.g.

Bashir, Arshid (Technical Support Manager, Emirates Airlines). Telephone Interview.
2 April 2003.

Koch, Catherine (Head of Instruction, Al Ain Women's College). Personal Interview.
2 April 2003.

Aha! Another penny drops - thanks for that.

Not sure if full text of this is free or not (probably not... that's generally a good guess in life) but:

The perceptions, policy, and practice of educating twins: A review

There's one article that sounds perfect, but I strongly suspect you won't be able to find online as it's pretty old:

Alford, Delton L. "Emergence and Development of Musical Response in Preschool Twins and Singletons: A Comparative Study." Journal of Research in Music Education 19, 2, Sum 71: 222-7.

Do you know what citation system they want you to use? How and where you cite unpublished interviews (and how and where you cite other things, for that matter) differs from one to another (see here .

That's a good question to fire back to the examiner. Thanks.

Having problems finding anything about teaching your own child.

Possibly

Parents as Teachers
Theodore Andersson
Hispania, Vol. 74, No. 2 (May, 1991), pp. 426-429
here

Science:
Fusing the boundaries between home and child care to support children's scientific learning
Research in Science Education
ISSN 0157-244X (Print) 1573-1898 (Online)
Issue Volume 26, Number 2 / June, 1996
Pages 143-154
here

Literacy:
Differential Effects of Home Literacy Experiences on the Development of Oral and Written Language
Monique Senechal, Jo-Anne LeFevre, Eleanor M. Thomas, Karen E. Daley
Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb. - Mar., 1998), pp. 96-116
here

Numeracy:

Early Development anNumber Use at Home by Children and Their Parents and Its Relationship to Early Mathematical Performance
Belinda Blevins-Knabe *, Linda Musun-Miller
Early Development and Parenting
Volume 5, Issue 1 , Pages 35 - 45

here

An interesting one:

The Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY)
Amy J.L. Baker, Chaya S. Piotrkowski, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
The Future of Children
Vol. 9 ? No. 1 ? Spring/Summer 1999
pp116-133
here

Not sure if it will be of direct relevance, but it does offer a good example of how to describe a programme in an academic/research sounding way -- you may be able to borrow some of its language in describing your classes and have it fit better with your assessor's expectations rather than sounding too anecdotal.

I think partly it's likely to help to restructure your essay into

• What the basic question you're trying to answer is and why it's so important (probably a paragraph or two)
• "A survey of the relevant literature suggests that this question has not been directly addressed by published research to date." [or words to that effect]
• "However, some existing research does raise issues that are of relevance..." [now you have several paragraphs discussing the existing research you've read, what it suggests about your central question, and what it suggests about useful directions for research"
• "In the absence of existing research, I determined to embark upon an original research study to explore the areas of [whatever]"
• "My research was based upon

(1) Field interviews conducted with preschool music teachers, mothers of preschool children and preschool children themselves over a period between X and Y 2006. (2) An interview with [leading person in field], who is [whatever she is and why she's important] (3) [Describe your 6-month programme of classes, in outline what you were doing, your observation methods and system of note-taking.]"

• "At this stage the study has been primarily qualitative rather than quantitative in nature [i.e. you've basically observed and recorded individual and group interactions, rather than producing reams of statistics to analyse], but the preliminary findings discussed below raise some interesting potential avenues for future detailed study."
• [What's probably the bulk of your existing essay - what you discovered, what you found out, etc.]
• Your conclusion, what questions still remain unanswered, and suggestions for further profitable lines of research.

Lay the whole thing out with appropriate notes and citations. If they don't specify a format/style guide then I'd suggest one of the Chicago Manual of Style approaches (the Author-Date system, if you'd class what you're doing as "Social Sciences" [which I think is likely], or the Notes-Bibliography system if you'd class it as "Arts/Humanities").