January 2014

Since portfolio I, several goals have changed. I have dropped special education as my second concentration for research methods. As I delved further into the PhD curricula it became clear to me that a critical piece in my knowledge base was missing: the ability to effectively analyze and/or critique research. In addition to supporting my original goal of “translating current research and making it accessible to teachers, administrators, students and parents,” research methodology will increase my understanding of how to develop a fluid research design for the proposal phase of the program.  The research plan is situate self-regulated learning within a study of academic engagement. Research has yet to thoroughly conceptualize the factors of academic engagement, partially because engagement is difficult to quantify.  Defined as the “degree to which students are ‘connected’ to what is going on in their classes” (Steingerg et al., 1996, p.  131), academic engagement is largely conceptualized as a tripartite dimension of behavioral engagement (attendance, grades, homework quality/completion, attending,), emotional engagement (positive/negative reaction to failure), and cognitive engagement (autonomous purposeful activities/effort toward mastery) (Fredricks, Blumefeld, & Paris, 2004).  I look forward to formulating strong, applicable research questions for investigating how student’s self-regulated learning increases academic engagement, which in turn increases achievement.

With a distal goal of a 2015 graduation day, my proximal goals are to continue working toward gaining stronger research skills and finding opportunities be involved in research studies. This past year, I had the opportunity to assist Faye Huie, PhD candidate, in collecting data for her dissertation research. I am poised to assist her in analyzing the data this spring; I expect I will learn more from her than the help I offer. I’m thankful for the opportunity to work with her and will continue to look for additional  research involvement that fits best with my other responsibilities (work and family). In addition, I will continue reading research studies, literature reviews, and surfing websites maintained by researchers. I will translate the findings through community outreach programs, workshops presentations, writing articles in educational magazines/journals, and blogs.

In the future, Dr. Silvia Moore will work with high schools students, teachers and administrators to create programs for developing self-regulated and academically engaged students.