At our last Skype session we were talking about many things including research ideas, which I am very much interested in as I feel blind at the moment in this field. Hopefully I have just finished module 1 and starting module 2. At this stage I feel I am very behind as I did not find my research questions yet and I should have the inspiration very soon.
Like lost of you I have also lots of ideas about research questions but maybe it is not a good thing. I believe I am at the stage as a little child. Imagine she is standing front of thousands of different candies and she is forced to decide which one she will choose. Like she cannot choose all of them, I can also choose only 1.
Reflecting on myself I took a paper and wrote up which fields I am interested in and after add questions to each of them. I ended up with a huge map of my questions and I realised I did not even know I have so many! Again… I felt like a child as children have sooooo many questions. I am not sure if we as adults just lost the interest in questions over the time or we just gain boundaries to ask them. This could be a great research:) However, I do believe questions are good and we should definitely raise them up as often as they have born inside of us. After being lost in my mind map I forced myself to narrow the circles to choose which one I want to know more about. While doing it I kept in mind it is for my future so I asked myself a question what is your dream to be. I have realised it is still too wide so I asked what would be my next step after the master degree on my career’s ladder-step. That is quite obvious to me as before applying to this course I already knew it. I wish to teach musical theatre jazz dance at a university so my research question should be around that area. Although I know it is extremely interesting field and I am very inspired of it, I still could not pull out one of the idea I wrote up on my mind map. “Is the dance completions are beneficial or detrimental to children’s lives.” – this question is so interesting to me as it is not only a nowadays’ question but also I was part of many completions in my childhood as well. For my far future this question would be relevant as I wish to explore more into this field but my near future would require to get deeper in the musical theatre dance pedagogy at universities. What would you do? Right now I wish to be able to research in 2 fields:)
So… If I would think clearly I would choose to know more about musical theatre jazz dance pedagogy at universities. Let’s think clearly for a moment!:) what would be my questions about it? How would I go around them? Like I have said I mapped up my fields and connected my questions to them, but at the moment I feel I would have not enough pages and time to answer all of them. And again I need to narrow my research field…
… I feel blind even if I have ideas…!!! What do you think? Do you know already what you will research? If yes, how did you find the perfect questions? If no, how are you looking for the perfect questions?
Looking forward to read your answers, feel brave enough to do so!:)
Xxx
Suzy MAPP DTP 
Hi Suzy
I feel your anxiety and frustration around developing a research question. As I read your post it immediately struck a chord with me and even though I have travelled the MAPP journey, as I reflect on my thoughts at the start of module 2 and re-read my reflective journal my feeling of confusion and further questions are indeed symmetrical to your own. At the time I needed to feel confident that I would choose the right subject and that it would not only produce research but extend my pedagogic practise. I remember thinking where on earth do I start…….. !!
Being like you and not being able to narrow my mind map of questions to an area that I felt was fit for purpose in terms of ‘what’ and ‘how’ to develop my research proposal, I decided to look back over my AOL’s and write down all the questions that I had raised within the final submission of module 1. This still proposed many opportunities that I could potentially research, but by using this as a guide to then steer me towards literature that was indicative to the outcome of the AOL questions I was then able to reduce the list further and eventually settle on my research proposal. I remember both Helen and Adesola advising us not to worry if we didn’t have a pre-conceived subject for our research, which at the time filled me with panic. However, as in all things hind sight is a wonderful thing, and I encourage you to believe this sentiment because it was definitely true for me, the question for my research proposal and professional inquiry that followed was to be found in module 1. I was able to reflect on my diary, notes and literature and pinpoint the questions that I had raised and ultimately interested me enough to dig deeper and develop my professional practice. I appreciate that this may not be the case for everyone, but maybe by lessening the pressure of the ‘I need to find’ thought, it might be useful to re-read what you have already done and mark the subjects and books that interest you the most…………..why do they interest you? what else could you discover/learn? and so on. All I can say to you, is that this thought and ‘doing’ process most definitely provided me with my research proposal.
I hope this helps alleviate some of your puzzled mind map and I really look forward to hearing what you decide to research.
Good Luck
Amanda
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Hi Suzy!
I love your idea of the mind map, I am going to try that today! Although now I am worried it may bring out too many ideas!
I went to our local University Library this week and took out 42 books around topics I had already been considering (Modern, Ballet, and Teaching). My plan is to scan through all of these and see if anything jumps out at me. Not sure if that would help you?
Good luck!
Ainsley
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Hello Suzy.
I think both of your ideas for research sounds very interesting, but as you yourself wrote, maybe something with musical theatre dance will be best since that is what you want to work with in the future. Do you currently teach these classes? If so, maybe if you make a mind map about just these classes. Is there anything you are wondering about? What do you do in these classes? Technique, singing, only dance, do you have a theme etc. Maybe something pops out if you carefully examine your practice within these classes?
I think I have landed on my field of research now and I can not exactly pinpoint as to when I decided to do it. But if this idea had not struck me, then I would have had no idea as what to research….
Maybe it would help to find some articles/books/research papers within the field of musical theatre dance? Then you will see what other people think/have written and you might get some ideas?
Best of luck,
Maria:)
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