Weekly Reflection

27/09/2024

This week has been the most fulfilling and productive week for our group since the project began. I feel as though the progress made by the students in the session that we put on was so evident that it made up for the disappointment of having to pull out of our other school on the grounds that it did not have any sign-ups. The improvement in the confidence and maturity of the students in their third session was greater than even the first session with the session ending with the children presenting their arguments to their peers in a formal structure for the first time. This was particularly heart-warming as most of the children did not know each other very well at the first session, but here it was clear that they were comfortable being open and opinionated around each other.

Regarding the research aspect of the project, our group has also made strides in gathering data, familiarising ourselves with foreign software, and beginning to write up our first draft. We have arranged meetings with relevant stakeholders for next week and already conducted a few enlightening interviews. Additionally, have pushed for as many responses to our survey as possible and the rest of the Laidlaw cohort has obliged meaning that we have a great basis to start thematic analysis next week. The literature review has been harder to crack, however, with our preliminary research selecting roughly 30 sources to include. Our supervisor has suggested that we each tackle a few sources each and create an annotated bibliography that can be used as a start for our literature review.

I am expecting next week to be much busier but am looking forward to it nonetheless.