Reflection: A Key to Successful Educational Research and Conference Presentations

Abstract

Reflections are valuable sources that would help people, and educators in particular, consider their personal experiences, acknowledge their thoughts and appreciate the experiences and ideas of others. As a researcher, reflections have been an inspirational guide- providing insights to any possible research stage in my career. One of the most precious reflective experiences I ever had was that related with the educational research I conducted back at 2009 and the reflective moments it brought with it during a conference presentation. Before conducting research, certain questions should have triggered researcher’s thoughts. These questions might evolve from researcher’s own readings, interests or experience. However, formulating the questions into research form is not always as easy as it may look. Any research would normally pass through stages where the researcher needs to define and redefine, organize and reorganize and to write, elaborate and delete. Asking the right questions so that reasonable answers can be obtained is a must. It is vital at every cycle of the research to pause and review the whole process. Yet, for this critical, arduous task to be successfully completed, the researcher needs to be objective and unbiased so that this review would contribute to conducting further study research with more developed data and reliable results. My experience in the field of education – more than 20 years as an ESL/EFL teacher, and more than 12 years as a teacher trainer and English supervisor – was the foundation on which the following reflective study was based. The study and its findings were presented at an international conference as part of the assessment component in a doctoral programme. This paper deals with a high-priority issue for a student researcher: reflection. It itself comprises a critical reflection on the different cycles of a research study. Part one of this reflection will get to grips with the methodology of the study and the decisions made about selecting qualitative rather than quantitative methods of inquiry. Part two will reflect upon the stages of abridging the findings of this study into a 15-minutes conference presentation. The feedback obtained from the attendees will also be scrutinized.