I am very much looking forward to speaking with and learning from my classmates in this class. Their insight and opinions are important to me, and I know that they will have a lot to offer me as we progress through this course.
I was interested to read in the 5 Misconceptions about Scientific Research in Music Education article that "Statistics can be used to prove anything" is a common misconception. It hadn't occurred to me that nothing is really proven by statistics. As a person who is very numbers driven, I will have to work hard to move away from this preconceived notion. The concept, however, is sound and I am willing to forgo my reliance on numbers to look more deeply into research results.
It had never occurred to me that, as described the Mertler text, educational research and the scientific method are closely related. While this makes perfect sense to me when presented, it is not a connection that I had made in the past while studying or performing research in music education. I am very much looking forward to more revelations, no matter how simple they may be, throughout this course.
