Edited by Annie Storkey, Friday, 29 Oct 2021, 16:44
During the Prof doc residential weekend I was able to attend a couple of sessions with a librarian which I found really helpful. I've been an AL for 12 years and during this time I have taught students how to do literature searches and completed my own for my history degree and master's research. But it was nice to sit down with an expert and explore the functionality of the library and the other resources available for research studies.
The session introduced me to time saving software for storing articles and referencing. I'm very much a creature of habit and am actually very good at manually referencing but it was time to up my game and I have now downloaded Mendeley as a tool for citations. An organised and easily accessed storage system for articles will make my literature searching so much easier for my doctorate.
The other bonus for the session is that I found an article which fits in perfectly with my research. It is 'Barriers to learning online experienced by students with a mental health disability' (McManus et al, 2017). A lovely article because it is so rare to find academic studies which are so close to my own (distance learning and mental health disability being a niche combination, unfortunately, that's why I'm doing my research) yet from an different perspective. This article focuses on identifying barriers whereas I want to overcome barriers and empower students so it gives a good background for my own research to build on. It also considers the social model of disability and its critics which is relevant to my own philosophical approach to disability.As the first article in my literature search it is an encouraging start.
So, tomorrow afternoon's work is to critically review the article.
Revelations in literature searching
During the Prof doc residential weekend I was able to attend a couple of sessions with a librarian which I found really helpful. I've been an AL for 12 years and during this time I have taught students how to do literature searches and completed my own for my history degree and master's research. But it was nice to sit down with an expert and explore the functionality of the library and the other resources available for research studies.
The session introduced me to time saving software for storing articles and referencing. I'm very much a creature of habit and am actually very good at manually referencing but it was time to up my game and I have now downloaded Mendeley as a tool for citations. An organised and easily accessed storage system for articles will make my literature searching so much easier for my doctorate.
The other bonus for the session is that I found an article which fits in perfectly with my research. It is 'Barriers to learning online experienced by students with a mental health disability' (McManus et al, 2017). A lovely article because it is so rare to find academic studies which are so close to my own (distance learning and mental health disability being a niche combination, unfortunately, that's why I'm doing my research) yet from an different perspective. This article focuses on identifying barriers whereas I want to overcome barriers and empower students so it gives a good background for my own research to build on. It also considers the social model of disability and its critics which is relevant to my own philosophical approach to disability. As the first article in my literature search it is an encouraging start.
So, tomorrow afternoon's work is to critically review the article.
Annie