This article considers the first experience of high school students in research work for school projects. The authors pay attention to their achievements and spheres for improvement on the basis of their own practice. Some useful advice are given for high school students who are taught by new programs in the frames of theoretical research.
Key words : research, comparison, issues, lenses, perspectives, achievements, skills, sources, credibility.
Nazarbayev Intellectual school was created by autonomic organization for gifted and exceptional students. As the school has consistently attached importance to improving high-level skills such as critical thinking, synthesis and analysis, a renew curriculum constructed by Cambridge was adopted for high school students. In the frames of the course named ‘Global Perspectives and Project Work’, the students are expected to make an independent research on a range of global issues, where usually different perspectives should be considered. Throughout the curriculum, we are encouraged to think about problems of global significance and make own judgements about them, which not only increase awareness about important issues, but also allow us to think beyond boundaries. Thus after finishing the course students are able to do any writing work better, because they comply with coherence and cohesion criteria. It is an indispensable help during language courses and history lessons.
If the research project is at the beginning of the work, it is beneficial to communicate with individuals who have experience doing a research work. Before the launching of GPPW lesson in Grade 11, we were quite familiar with the aims and basics of the subject because of other students, who had previously presented their own mini-projects to us. Some of them directed us and even handed out pieces of advice. For instance, it was said that it is helpful to choose a topic of personal relevance or interest and manage time properly. Looking back, the idea of us conducting an academic research was almost impossible, as it deemed exceptionally difficult to coordinate it independently. However, because we had few weeks of instructions to prepare to our first attempt of self-designed research project our expectations were not met. Thus, despite us receiving a guidance choosing a topic required a lot of time but a lot of practice during English lessons led us to success.
To provide the variety of the research the topics should be considered from different perspectives [1]. Perspectives provide different points of view that can be analyzed with the help of lenses giving directions of research. During first lessons, we had time learning about existence of three perspectives. As defined by Laycock, Global Perspectives provides opportunities to enquire into, and reflect on, global topics and issues from different perspectives: global, national/local and personal, where global stands for relating to the whole world, local is related to a particular country/area and personal is related to a personality [2]. In order to generate more nuanced issues for consideration we were suggested to view through six GPPW lenses [3]: culture, economics, environment, politics, ethics, and science. We used three of them to focus on during the project. These notions allowed us to make a diverse and versatile work, so, all of us presented a clear understanding of them. The same approach worked not only for GP lessons but for other linguistic courses as well.
Choosing topic is the hardest and at the same time, the most important part of research work. At the beginning of the course, we expected to choose any topic, but very soon, we understood that there was a restricted list of topics, thus choosing a suitable topic was a time-consuming process. Learners are free to determine their area for research as long as “research questions fall within one of the topics on the syllabus, and meet the assessment criteria” [3]. Therefore, the first difficulty we faced was determination of a topic and consequently, creating a research question, as majority of us could not select a topic, which is consistent with all requirements.
There were two common mistakes among students: several research questions were wrong because they anticipate a simple answer: yes or no, for example, “Is it beneficial to restrict usage of phones in schools?” or “Did industrialization had any impact on economics?” As these questions are not open to debate, it is impossible to make an adequate research on it. Another inappropriate example is “How does feminism influence a society?” which was too general as there were no restrictions at time period or place. Almost all students failed in structuring right question for their research work at the beginning of the term. There was an obvious improvement though, as teachers were guiding us. To clarify the concept, we were suggested to use the words impact, influence, change, effect and cause, which made the questions comparably pertinent. Hence, eventually we succeeded in formulation of research questions despite some obstacles.
In contrast, structuring of arguments was one of our greatest successes. We quickly learned how to make an argument look logical and convincing by having a statement, reasoning, example and conclusion. Within a week, everyone was comfortable and confident using it. This practice improved our speaking and writing skills.
It is helpful to have only reliable sources. Whilst writing an essay, we were asked to evaluate secondary research’s sources with the help of RAVEN test, which stands for reputation, ability to see, vested interest, expertise and neutrality [4]. Through analyzing sources for their credibility, we were able to choose only valid and unbiased ones in order to ensure that our research is not affected. However, our researches were influenced by our own bias opinion that formed as a result of our life experience and on our lessons we understood that including this information makes the work more credible.
The next step of making our research work was peer assessment. In this part students criticize and provide feedback to each other on their work. This part can be considered more as a failure for us as instead of giving a well-constructed and specific feedback we attempted to praise classmates. The reason for this arrangement is that initially, we thought that peer review is not significant, because all our works will be checked by teacher, but it helped us to develop skills in assessing and making feedback to others, as well as to evolve skills of self-assess and improve our work.
Apart from this, most of us struggled with meeting a deadline for a project. We regretted that we postponed writing a task and left it undone until the last moment. It definitely affected our research badly, decreasing its quality. Willing to solve this problem, we developed a new strategy for managing time. We had agreements within the class to meet and work for a specific amount of time and had to stop working even if the work is not done yet to reduce stress level. After implementation of it, we have been on time or ahead of time for every project, both individual and team projects.
Therefore, a renew curriculum Global Perspectives and Project work explores current issues and helps to broaden learners’ outlooks by developing following skills:
− Ability to think critically and creatively
− Ability to cooperate and collaborate with others
− Ability to construct arguments efficiently
− Ability to give well-constructed and specific feedback
− Open-mindedness and willingness to consider issue from different points of view
− Gain an independent world-view and become a global-thinker
− Ability to assess and write feedback
It should be noted that we have made a major work throughout the curriculum and our biggest achievements include overall development of research skills, structuring of arguments and perfect understanding of lenses and perspectives. We successfully applied the obtained skills to project works of humanitarian direction subjects as well as social study ones. In contrary, there were skills requiring development such as feedback assessment, issue selection and creating a research question.
References:
- Laycock K. 2016. Cambridge IGCSE® and O Level Global Perspectives Coursebook
- “Cambridge International AS and A LevelGlobal Perspectives & Research” // Updated 15 February 2015. [Electronic Resource]. URL: https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/202589–2017–2019-syllabus-.pdf
- Lally J. 2017. Global Perspectives & Research for Cambridge International AS & A Level
- “Critical Thinking 21: Credibility of Sources”// Middle Way Society. Updated 10 April 2018. [Electronic Resource]. URL: http://www.middlewaysociety.org/critical-thinking-21-credibility-of-sources/
