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1. Good evening, classmates and professor, it has been an interesting seven weeks to say the least. When registering for this course, I had an idea of what to expect based on the course title. Considering the field of emergency management, I expected to receive a major assignment of take an incident or disaster and fully disassemble it. Analyze it inside and out from a particular perspective and write a 10-20 page paper. However, that was not to be. Upon reading the syllabus for the class and the nature of the assignments, I determined my previous notions were incorrect and this class required a completely different frame of reference, something I have no prior experience with: research project proposals. This felt like a conflict due to the name of the class and the actual assignment expected using supporting reference material coming from another class. I attempted to gain a greater understanding through reading the core text and inquiring the professor for more information, but neither of these attempts bore fruit. Instead, I read some previous EM case analyses and observed trends. These trends identified the approaches and organizational systems I could apply to my own topic and have since understood the framework of the assignment we are due to submit.

After familiarizing myself with the concept of a Research Proposal, which is far more in depth than a case analysis alone, I now have a greater understanding and comfort with our final assignment. I have listed a few of the takeaways I feel would improve the course for some students who have less exposure to this method of research.

I. I feel the course description does not paint an accurate picture of what to expect, and the student does not learn this until after the have already registered and scheduled their lives around the class. If this class does not work out for them, by that time it may be too late to switch or drop.

A greater explanation of what
EXACTLY is expected should be in the course description and syllabus, rather than speculation by students who, like myself, have never done a case analysis [read: Research Proposal] before. This leads to unnecessary confusion and frustration.

II. I feel a better explanation of the type of event(s) that would work best for this incident would help, rather than letting people pick their own with no guidance. The reason I say this is because you pick an event, then realize what the assignment is, your event may not be the best fit.

In my current selection, I think if I had known what was expected prior to the class, I would have chosen a much more recent incident that did not have decades of research already conducted so to not have any previous background knowledge and could create ideas without any bias from history. Perhaps adding a recommendation to the assignment stating

choose an event < 5 years old
to allow more genuine idea synthesis without prior research already hitting those points.

2. I. Initially, I was confused by “research methodology” in terms of research, because in all my previous studies, research is just what you

do
… There is no “method” to it because any time you look something up you are researching. I had to have it explained to me by a resource outside of the class there is a difference between research and

research
. After examining the reference text, I feel it begged for some sort of breakout or organizational chart explaining how all the different examples fit together, or the hierarchy that exists between the different methods listed. For instance:

Merriam suggests that case study research may be founded in ethnographic, historical, psychological, or sociological orientations. Case study research designs may be classified as intrinsic, instrumental, or collective. Types of case study research designs include exploratory, explanatory, and descriptive. (Hancock & Algozzine, 2016, p. 37.)

In this one sentence, they use

ten
different descriptors, without any categorical hierarchy. How does a student understand the correlation existing between them? A diagram would work perfectly here.

II. Because my research topic occurred almost forty years ago, there is extensive research covering this topic. This hurts my analysis due to the difficulty in being completely unbiased or not presenting ideas already conducted. I do not feel this methodology works for my subject, having a lot of time between the event and today.

III. If I could choose again, I would choose a more recent event, to allow the freedom to speculate on a hypothesis without there already being research into this topic. Originally, I had chosen a recent dam break, but another student had already posted their intent to use that topic and I did not want to duplicate the same work in the class out of fairness to that student, and chose a secondary topic in haste not fully understanding the assignment at the start of the class. Knowing what I know now, I would have chosen another more recent topic.

I am looking forward to presenting my final assignment now, knowing what is expected and understanding the organizational structure of the assignment. I think the perspective I have chosen is one that will help across the EM field, and I would not have arrived at this reference subject without all of the hardship I described above. For this, I am thankful for the class in expanding my research capabilities. Thank you to the rest of the class for your comments during the weekly discussions, and Dr. Hanifen for your comments on my assignments. I am using them to continue pursuing my education in Emergency Management, and hopefully soon, putting it into practice in the field.

References

Hancock, D. R., & Algozzine, B. (2016). Doing case study research: A practical guide for beginning researchers. Teachers College Press.