Andrea Boykin

Since Portfolio II, I have continued to engage in the special education community through continued involvement in research projects and presentations. This engagement continues to strengthen my research and presentation skills and has given me the opportunity to participate in and present a variety of research. In addition to the support on research projects, the coursework I have taken since Portfolio II had increased my understanding of several contemporary issues in special education. The continued work on research projects, presentation, and coursework has narrowed my focus for future research, has helped me to develop and refine the methods that will be used in my dissertation, and has helped me to think about ways to address issues in special education research.

During the last month, I have supported two research projects as a graduate research assistant by supporting faculty and graduate students through a variety of tasks including reviews or previous research, modifications of materials for research studies, and development of a manuscript for submission to a research conference and future publication. As a graduate research for Project We Got IT working with Dr. Evemenova and Dr. Regan, I worked on a collaborative team to modify lessons that would be used in the next iteration of the research study. By working on a team during lesson studies, my feedback was used to restructure and pace the lessons to help students with disabilities and struggling writers understand the content. In addition, I developed the initial prototype for five paragraph graphic organizer that would potentially be used for students in the writing research who have mastered writing one quality paragraph. My previous work on this research team has included development of the prototype for the one paragraph graphic organizer, co-developing presentations for national presentations, locating and reviewing literature to support the various aspects of the research, developing lesson plans and student materials for research, implementing single subject research at high needs school sites and scoring student writing from baseline and treatment. Recent work on this research team has improved my ability to listen to comments from others on the team and provide constructive feedback to improve materials for research. Work on this research team has also helped me to become more vocal in my ideas by providing opportunities for me share thoughts about how to improve the research and materials. Working on this project has helped me to become more comfortable in sharing ideas and working in leadership positions.

In addition to working as a graduate research assistant for Project We Got IT, I continued to support meta-analysis research with Dr. Berkeley. Previous activities for this research project included locating research studies to be used in the research study, refining inclusion and exclusion criteria, reading and coding articles, calculating effect sizes, and analyzing data to develop conclusions. During the last month of working on the project, I have conducted a literature search to support the rationale of the research study and worked as a team to decide how the studies included in the research should be organized in the manuscript an analysis. Recently, I reviewed technology research, located appropriate technology frameworks and combined the important aspects of these frameworks to support the rationale for the research.   I developed a variety of tables to present the frameworks and the studies, reviewed research included in the literature review to determine the salient technology components of the research to place within a technology framework, and wrote the technology portion of the literature review. In working on this research project, I have realized the importance of careful review of research and coding in order to develop conclusions to support the field. I have also strengthened my ability to analyze data and develop rationale through review of previous research, and synthesis these findings in writing to support the research.

The coursework taken within this month has also helped me to become more comfortable in speaking around others and sharing ideas. In addition, the classes increased my understanding of some of the global issues in special education as well as problems with assessment and instruments. In Problem Solving in Contemporary Issues in Special Education, I read keystone research studies regarding students with high incidence disabilities, and discussed issues in special education including the identification of students with disabilities, the lack of evidence based practices implemented in the classroom, and the difficulties students with disabilities have after graduation. This course helped me to understand some of the directions that my future research can take which includes strengthening professional development in schools to help to close to research to practice gap. This course also gave me ideas of some of the gaps within the research in special education and helped me to think of future research projects that can help to support the lack of research in some areas of special education.   In conjunction with Problem Solving in Contemporary Issues in Special Education, the course Assessment, Instrumentation, and Instrumentation in Special Education also helped me to understand some of the issues of measurement in special education. In this course, I was able to learn the importance of well-developed measurement tools to accurately determine the effectiveness of an intervention in research. I also learned the process of developing an instrument and how to determine reliability and validity of an instrument to ensure that the tool reflects the construct and provides accurate measurement. In this course, I was able to develop a holistic writing rubric to score expository essays during my dissertation. By going through the process of developing this rubric, I feel confident that the rubric will be able to accurately measure the writing of the students within the research study.

The research projects I have worked on as well as the coursework taken this semester has helped me to refine my intellectual and professional goals. Professionally, I plan to continue to conduct research with students that have high incident disabilities in high needs school sites. After review of research during research projects as well as readings in coursework, I have also noticed a need for interventions that can be easily implemented in inclusive settings to support students with disabilities, as well as interventions that help students with disabilities access content material and support content literacy. I would like to develop interventions to help students with high incidence disabilities access the curriculum in inclusion classrooms through the use of technology. To develop this research, I would also like to learning about the metacognition of students with disabilities to increase learning and memory of this population to support their needs within the inclusive classroom, and to continue to increase my understanding and implementation of high quality research with this population.