Research Journal 25

So far in my research portfolio, I have 6 sets of field notes, 1 interview written down and 5 interviews recorded on video, all of my research journals thus far, and all of my WA’s up to this point. Basically, this is all of the information I have gathered in relation to my research project as well as all of the information that led to the development of my research question. I have decided to include EVERYTHING that we have done this far because all of it is relevant to my project. I believe it is relevant because it looks at literacy and the many different ways one can gain it. I feel like the kinds of interactions we have with our peers as our literacy develops affects how we view our literacy as well as what we choose to do with it. Some of the Honors students, particularly the one in the older years, mentioned that they neglect to inform people of their scholarship simply because they do not want to be viewed differently from anyone else. I feel like that, in a way, affects our literacy. The students who have made it to the Honors College have overcome these obstacles for the most part with their academic goals still intact. This makes me wonder what happended to the students who had potential to do extremely well in school and chose to fit in instead. I believe (I am not proven correct) that there are far more intelligent people out there than we realize – some have just been conditioned that intelligence is a negative thing. Especially for women, magazines and other types of media tell us that it is not attractive for a girl to be “too smart.” Men are often told that girls prefer brawn over brain. Our society portrays more importance on appearance rather than substance, which makes me wonedr what the world would be like if intelligence and ambition were valued more so than beauty. I hope that my project helps people to see that the Honors students are just normal people…and that others are just as capable of being successful in school if only they applied themselves and practiced good study habits. My field notes have shown me, and hopefully will show others, that even the “smart” kids can get distracted and perform poorly on assignments just like anyone else. Self discipline seemed to outweigh intelligence on several occasions…which led me to wonder just what intelligence qualifies as…because this project only taught me that the only thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessfull is ambition…some want to rise above and stand out while others wish to stay grounded and blend in with the crowd…I totally wish that the world valued ambition and intellect more…because beauty fades with time…but intellect is something that is always growing and always changing and can pass through vast periods of time. No matter how much anti-aging cream you slap on your face…it will never outlast intellect.

Research Journal 26

I believe that my portfolio is coming along nicely…I had already begun my physical portfolio when Dr. Carter announced that she wanted an online portfolio…but since she decided that physical portfolios are alright as well, I’m all good! I found the first steps of creating my portfolio quite stressful because I did not know how I should organize my information. After class on Thursday, however, I feel much better about it. I did not necessarily follow the examples I had been shown, but I am  under the impression that it is okay to do something different. I think my biggest concern was with the annotated bibliography just because I found it hard to explain why some things were important to my project. Oh, SNOT! I forgot to cite my items for my WA 5…oh, well…I will make sure that it is done for my final portfolio. Anyway, Dr. Carter has pretty much answered every question I had regarding my portfolio, so I think I am good to that respect. All I have to do to complete my portfolio is print out my RJs and add in my artifacts.  I’m almost done!

Research Journal 24

Chapter 8 basically deals with the drafting of your final ethnographic research paper, or “the draft” as it is known. It has us re-evaluating our data as to help us figure out what our data is saying and what direction the paper should go. I believe that I have pretty much done that…since my WA 4 was the beginning of my project. I am also doing a video project, so the information about WRITING the paper wasn’t as helpful to me as I am sure it was for others, but it did offer insight on how to strengthen my project. One thing this chapter emphasizes is that the first draft will most likely NOT be like the final draft, as you will begin to see holes in your paper that additional analysis of the data collected. Anne Lamott describes these drafts as Shitty First Drafts, which she says are only for getting your thoughts on paper for further organization. It is also recommended that you question yourself as you are working so that you are sure you cover all the areas that need to be covered. The chapter provides an array of different questions that could prove helpful in this process. Stephen King offers a bit about how we need to write in a basic form so that we can communicate to the reader in a clear and concise manner. King also stresses the importance of grammar and mechanics – something that I have always been told is essential. I did not find much new information to that respect because of the “Grammar and Mechanics Boot camp” I was forced to endure in the middle of my senior year. Overall, I believe this chapter was more about looking at your data more closely so that you can begin writing your project and/or add more length to it. I did draw a few bits of information from this chapter, but because I had already started my project and analysis of my data, I found a good bit of the information to be repetitive for me. The example of the Annotated Table of Contents did serve a purpose for me, though, because I had to do one for WA 5 and for my research portfolio. I am not 100% sure if I did it correctly, but the example helped to give me an idea of what Dr. Carter was expecting from me. It also helped to give me an idea of how I wanted to organize my portfolio, because I already knew that the previous examples I saw did not suite what I wanted to do with my portfolio. Alas, this concluded the Field working book…I am kind of stoked because it was not often in High school that we actually finished out a book. Though this book took a lot of brain power to complete, I found a great amount of the information helpful in creating my ethnographic research project. Thanks, Field Working!!!!

Analysis of my research thus far
Overall, I am pretty excited about my research. I had expected to find out that other honors students had felt discriminated against, but I did not expect to find out so much about the subject. I found that each student had a similar, yet unique, experience growing up when it came to school and how their peers perceived them based on their academic performances. One thing I found interesting was that not all students experienced this phenomenon at the same time…meaning that some bore the brunt of discrimination at elementary school while others felt mistreated in junior high or even high school. I had problems with people treating me unequally because of my grades for pretty much all of my life, so it was kind of refreshing to hear that everyone didn’t go through it for quite as long as I did. Another thing I noticed that I could not quite figure out was that the mucis majors who took my survey noted that they did not have problems with discrimination within the music department. They noted that everyone “was on the same playing field” in the music department and that there were little to no problems with the honors vs non-honors thing like on other parts of the campus. I also expected to mostly hear about discrimination from the students…I was surprised at how many students complained about feeling unequal in the eyes of their teachers. I always liked having more expected of me by my teachers because it helped to motivate me to give my all, but a great amount of the responses I received stated that they hated that their teachers treated them differently because they felt like they weren’t any different from the other students and should not be treated differently. They also complained that the teachers sometimes harbor unrealistic expectations and assume that they are too smart to make mistakes, which they feel is unintelligent because even though they have shown excellent performance in the classroom, they are still teenagers and are still prone to making mistakes. I also liked to hear about the different reactions people have to the unequal treatment by their teachers and classmates. Some were bothered, but did not let it affect them too much. Others tried to conceal the fact that they were honors students just so that they could get away from the constant questions about homework assignments or the desperate attempts of others to cheat of their papers. One thing that I thing everyone would be surprised to know is that the dean of honors college stated that intelligence and test scores are not the most important factors when selecting a class of honors students – leadership and community involvement are. They only consult the gpa and test scores when they are stuck between two people and need another deciding factor to help in the selection process.

Code Book (revised)
Majors
AM = Art Major
BCM = Biology/Chemistry Double Major
EdM = Education Major
EgM = English Major
EnM = Engineering Major
MM = Music Major
PM = Psychology Major
PRM = Public Relations Major
RTM = Radio/Television Major
Experienced Discrimination From…
DT = Teachers
DS = Students
Environment/Performance Relationship
EB = Body Position
ED = Distractions (tv, music, etc.)
EE = Eye Contact
EF = Friends
ES = Seating
Level of Education Experienced
L1 = Elementary (k-6)
L2 = Junior High (7-8)
L3 = High School (9-12)
L4 = Post-Secondary Education
Reactions
R1 = Isolated Self
R2 = Concealed Honors Status
R3 = Did Not Socialize with Non-Honors
Why Did You Make Honors?
A1 = Mentioned GPA
A2 = Mentioned Class Rank
A3 = Mentioned SAT or ACT Scores
A4 = Mentioned None of The Above

For my Table of Contents, please consult my WA 5

WA 5

Table of Contents:

• Artifacts
  • Texas A&M University-Commerce brochure
    • This is important to my research because it offers the basic information about the requirements to apply for the Honors College. It is also used as promotional material for the University as well as for the Honor’s College and is a source of information for people all around Texas, not just in the area. I chose to include this artifact in my portfolio because I feel like it allows the reader/viewer of my project to get a feel for just what kind of people make up the Honors College as well as what each student had to do to be awarded the scholarship. It is also similar to the material I received when I first heard about the Honors College.
  • Honor’s First Year Success Syllabus
    • Honors students are required to take a special kind of freshman success class – one that has been designed specifically for Honors students and allows the students to get together with Dr. Green and Dr. Gruver and learn the expectations they are required to follow as well as basic study skills (taking notes, reading, critical thinking, etc.) I found this item useful because some of the assignments involve getting outside of Prairie Crossing, being among other students, and enjoying the social life that the campus has to offer. I thought that the syllabus was a perfect example that the Honors students are here not just to make high grades, but also to get involved in the campus life and take advantage of what the university has to offer.
• Field notes
  • Notes from Brandt’s Essay
    • Brandt’s essay about sponsors of literacy really made me think back to what inspired me to do well in school and to pursue post-secondary education. Realizing that I was among my sponsors of literacy, I began to develop ideas about how I became a sponsor of literacy, which led me to the conclusion that other people’s negativity toward my “intelligence,” as it was called, discouraged me from making good grades and from applying myself in school. Though I overcame those poisoning thoughts, I wondered if maybe some other students had similar experiences that had shaped their literacy as well. I included this in my portfolio because this assignment was not only the beginning of the semester, but the beginning of this whole project. It was what I learned about myself, and about literacy, in this article that brought about the idea that the students who are labeled “smart” have felt discriminated against because of that label. In addition, I hope I show people that “smart” is not the correct thing to label these students.
  • Study Habits – Distractions
    • These are truly my first set of field notes. In these notes, I look at a student who is famous among the freshman for being a Super Nerd while he is “studying” during an Ultimate Fighter episode. I found this information helpful because it showed that even though the student was “smart,” he hardly got any of his work done because of the environment he chose to work in. I believe that this study shows that self-discipline outweighs intelligence, which basically led me to believe that more students could have been eligible for the Honors scholarship if they had just applied themselves a little more.
  • Classroom Behavior – Non-Honors Algebra
    • In this study, I attended my twice-a-week Algebra class, which is not an Honors course. I decided to take notes on the students’ behavior during this class because I wanted to see what made the Honors classes different from the other courses. In a brief summary, the only true difference between the Honors courses and the non-Honors courses is the behavior of the students. In this class, I noticed more talking, sleeping, poor attitudes, and lack of responsiveness. I do not want people to believe that ALL of the students in the class are this way, because there are quite a few respectful and successful students in the class. My whole point with this study is that those who paid attention and behaved themselves had higher grades than those who chose to goof off or sleep.
  • Study Habits – Social Gatherings
    • I decided to look at other ways environment can dictate the learning experience. In this instance, I took note of the behavior of three people, my roommate, my friend, and myself, as we all got together to try and study. In this case, the TV was off, so there weren’t many distractions. However, each of us was more inclined to talk to each other and take study breaks as a group than to actually study. Moreover, silence seemed to bother us more when we were together than when we decide to study alone. I found this knowledge helpful in that it showed, once again, that intelligence is not everything; you have to maintain a good bit of self-discipline and you have to choose a proper environment and proper study partners in order to be a successful student.
  • Classroom Behavior – Honor’s English
    • Because I studied the behavior of a non-Honors class, I thought it only fair to study an Honors class. The first thing I noticed is that the Honors class had some of the same problems the non-Honors course did; people were talking during the lecture and some decided to not pay attention during some parts. However, this behavior was not as prevalent as it was in the non-Honors class. Also, I noticed that the students who had a hard time paying attention sat furthest away from the teacher. More detail is included in the actual entry, but overall this observation showed me that a correlation between where you sit in the classroom and how you do in the class may exist.
  • Commerce Week on Writing – Life of 4 PhD Students
    • I included this event for one reason – Wade Thompson. Wade Thompson is a highly intellectual individual and made some great points during his presentation. He used his personal experiences with his peers to illustrate that intelligence is nice, but it is nothing without a social life. Thompson explained that it is the balance of the social and educational aspects that create a successful individual, which I thought was directly relevant to my study. I loved hearing Wade Thompson speak because, to me, he gave a great lecture on how success comes from more than good grades. His points helped me to better understand which direction I wanted to take my project and, hopefully, my use of his points will help people to see that the Honors students truly are more than their scholarship.
• Survey/Interview Scripts and Responses
  • Original Survey (sent out via e-mail)
    • I sent this survey out via e-mail mostly because I thought it would prove most convenient for the students. Everyone in the Honors College is in different majors and has classes at different times so I thought that if I sent out an e-mail, the students would be able to respond to it at a time that best suited them. I included this because a) it was necessary for my portfolio and because b) I would like for those who look at the portfolio to see what the original survey looked like. Because the survey was done in an e-mail, not all of the responses were done in the same format, so I thought being able to see the original would prove useful.
  • Original Interview Script (for Dr. Green)
    • This is exactly how it sounds: the original Interview Script for Dr. Green. During the interview, of course, I deviated slightly from the script because I felt like some of his answers produced more questions for me. I felt like this draft would serve me well in the interview and would give me a good bit of useful information, which it did. I also thought that my questions would get Dr. Green talking in detail, rather than simple yes or no questions. I thought Dr. Green would be a great person to interview because he is the Dean of the Honors College and he is a part of everything that goes on within the Honors College, including the selection process. Because of his insider view, he was able to present me with a great amount of information that helped to mold my final project.
  • Original Interview Script (for Honors Students)
    • This was just a rough draft of what I wanted to touch on when the time came to interview people. I got a great response from the survey, but I felt like it would serve my readers/viewers better to actually get to know some of the students inside the Honors College and to hear what they have to say about their experiences. What I really wanted people to get out of this survey was an understanding of what kind of people make up the Honors College instead of assuming that everyone fits under the stereotype of the glasses-wearing, pocket-protector-using, textbook-hugging nerds that society seems to associate successful students with. Moreover, I wanted people to see that there is more to these students than their report card.
  • Survey Responses (17 total)
    • The surveys were extremely helpful. I got responses from 17 students, including myself, and each one offered some kind of contribution to the overall project. I decided to group them together as one entry because the patterns that I saw when I analyzed them as a group provided a great deal of the information for the project and I did not believe that splitting them up would give everyone the full picture of what the results were saying. The surveys helped me to see just how “normal” the students are as well as how they feel when people assume that they are super geniuses. A lot of the students stated that they do not feel like all of the Honors College students are smart, which I believe a lot of people will be surprised to find out.
  • Responses from Interview (with Dr. Green)
    • Dr. Green really helped me out with this project. He offered insight in to the selection process, which even the Honors students were surprise to hear. Green explained how leadership and community involvement are more important qualities than intelligence. He also noted that the grade requirements listed in the brochure aren’t actual requirements; they would like to see those scores, but if you do not reach them, you can still be in the Honors College. In fact, Green said that standardized test scores and GPA aren’t usually consulted unless they are trying to choose between two individuals.
• Research Journals
  • Research Journals 2-7
    • These research journals are important because they are involved in the development of my research question. These research journals required me to read and respond to articles as well as analyze my field site, which allowed me to figure out what I wanted to know, who I wanted to ask, and what I expected to get out of the research. Though I do not believe I will directly use any of the information in my final project, I do believe that they helped me to gain a better understanding of what the project required me to do and what was expected of me for my final project.
  • Research Journal 8
    • This research journal focuses on taking notes in the field site and interpreting the emotions, sights, and sounds into useful information. The journal also discusses WA 2, which influenced my looking at discrimination on a college campus. My initial research question just looked at people who felt embarrassed by their academic success whereas this journal really helped me to develop my question further into looking at how fellow students and teacher influenced their experiences in school as well as their perceptions of themselves. I found that doing this research journal really benefitted me in the long run.
  • Research Journal 9
    • This research journal served as my reality check. The assigned chapter delved into the whole ethnographic research process and explained the importance of gaining permission from the participants so that you only use the information that they want you to use. I was lucky enough to be interviewing people with which I have a previous relationship, so getting permission really was not difficult, but this research journal just kind of opened my eyes to what all is involved with this project as well as what all needed to be done before I would be ready to present my idea or start to piece together my final project.
  • Research Journal 10
    • This research journal involved a ground working activity from one of the many chapters I have read this semester. This activity had me connect everything I had done thus far, including the articles I read at the beginning of the semester, and making use of the information presented. This journal also gave me an idea of what research I had done well and what research I had yet to do. This journal also helped me to think about how I would go about getting information from people and how I could word my questions to make the participants more comfortable.
  • Research Journal 11
    • I learned so much from this journal. Mostly, I learned the importance of making myself a familiar stranger to my research participants. I also learned how assumptions can taint a research project. I had always heard that you should always assume nothing when conducting research, but his research journal really put it into perspective for me. It also taught me that I needed to do research before I started researching, simply because you have to have an idea of what to look for before you start looking for it.
  • Research Journal 12
    • The ground working activity in this research journal proved most helpful. The activity helped me to put what I had collected up to that point together and to start looking at it from a researcher’s perspective. It also helped me to start thinking of what kind of questions I might want to ask my participants when the time came to send out the survey. I made use of some of these questions and added a few more later on. I also liked how the activity got me to start thinking about the behavioral differences between Honors and non-Honors students, since the behavioral differences are a part of my arsenal of information.
  • Research Journals 13-15
    • Journals 13-15 mostly utilize field notes and analyses of those field notes. Of course, all of the field notes are important in that they offer information about my site and the people within the site. These notes really helped me develop my project and to notice patterns in the behavior of Honors college and non-Honors college students. I really feel like each set of these notes assisted the whole theme of the project in that it gave me information that will help people to better understand where I am going with my project.
  • Research Journal 16
    • There are two extremely important parts to this research journal: first is the analysis of the assigned chapter and then there is the field notes over the Commerce Week on Writing event involving the Life of 4 PhD students. The chapter that I read for the journal pretty much tied together everything that the previous chapters had said. It also talked about how to make the best use out of every survey and every interview that I conduct, which really helped since I got all of my information from surveys and interviews. The Week on Writing event was helpful because it involved 4 higher learning individuals speaking about their experiences both in and out of school, which really helped me to gain a perspective on how everyone learns differently and how different people can do different things and yield the same results.
  • Research Journals 17-26
    • These final research journals sum up all of what I have found out about my subject and help me to make sense of everything I learned and, more importantly, help me to decide how to present my project in a way that makes sense to what I am trying to say with it. A few of the research journals are kind of random, but hey all really helped me to tie everything together and to figure out what all should be included in my final project and how it should be worded so that people can follow what is going on.
• WA’s
  • WA 1
    • This assignment had me look at my personal history with literacy, which in turn helped me to think about my experiences in and out of school with how my peers treated me. I always felt like my grades labeled me, which I was never ok with, and this assignment really got me thinking about how that label shaped my literacy as well as my relationships with my classmates. This assignment also got me wondering if maybe other people had similar experiences, which, of course, influenced the purpose of this project.
  • WA 2
    • I explored how colleges use text to discriminate against those who do not “belong” to that particular social group. I looked at groups such as sororities, fraternities, the Honors College, and other organizations that promote fundraiser and the reputation of the organizations. This assignment was important because it helped to add the discrimination aspect to my final project and helped me to develop my final research topic. It also helped me to get started on gathering information regarding my final project as well as where I wanted to go with it.
  • WA 3
    • WA 3 was basically my Research Proposal. This assignment required me to include certain details about my project that I, honestly, had not thought about until this time came around. Doing this writing assignment helped me to see the weak points of my projects as well as how I can make my project stronger and more scholarly. I believe it also helped me to start looking at my research from all kinds of venues just so that I could make the most out of what I had collected up to that point.
  • WA 4
    • This writing assignment truly was the beginning of the end for me. This assignment made up over half of my final project and helped me to see what I needed to add and what needed to change in order to make a successful final project. I feel like this assignment really helped me to see how I am supposed to bring everything together and to figure out how I should organize the information tastefully and in a way the viewer/reader is interested in what is going on. For my final project, I am just adding on to my WA 4 and shuffling around some slides to make it make more sense.

Research Journal 23

Okay, I have to be honest, I really didn’t enjoythis class at the beginning of the semester. It’s nothing personal against Dr. Carter or the people in the class, I just prefered creative writing and didn’t like writing about writing. However, my opinion has definitely changed. Over the past couple of weeks, I have really started to enjoy every aspect of this class, especially the research part of it. I have truly enjoyed researching a topic that interests me instead of being assigned one and I have really enjoyed getting to know the people through the process of gathering information. I also like developing the information that I have gathered into an entertaining final product. Probably my favorite part of this semester was the symposium in Mesquite. I mean, come one…I got to sit in a room for 4 hours, eating pizza and taling about myself. Does that not sound like the sweetest deal on earth? Jk lol. Actually, I enjoyed having people ask questions about my research and seeing how interested people are in my topic…because, honestly, I didn’t really think that a bunch of 8th graders would really care about what I have to say. I am very glad that they were, though, because it makes me feel like my research really will make an impact and will, hopefully, let other people know that A) “smart” people are really no different from other people…and “smart,” in most cases, isn’t the right word to describe them and B) people who have experienced such feelings will know that they are not alone. Either or both objectives would be ideal but I will settle for either one

Research Journal 22

As far as my research goes, I am extremely pleased with my findings. I have found out that a great majority of the students I interviewed/surveyed have experienced feelings of discrimination and/or seclusion because of their scholarship. I was astonished to find that a good bit of people don’t even mention the fact that they are in Honor’s College or they often pretend they aren’t as intelligent or they try to not call attention to themselves. One thing that I found interesting is that of the 17 people that supplied information, 3 of them were music majors and each of the music majors reported that they did not have such experiences within the music department. Outside of the music department, however, they reported feeling discriminated against by the students and held to a higher standard by their teachers. I, personally, would like to talk to some music majors and figure out why they believe that the music department is better at treaeting students equally despite their academic performance.

My codes really haven’t changed…I anticipate them changing before I am done with my final project, however.

Research Journal 21

For my WA4, I plan on using text to provide an inside view of my research field site. For my interview, I sat down with Dr. Raymond Green, the Dean of the Honor’s College. I decided to interview Dr. Green because he is the one who is in charge of selecting the students who will receive the Honor’s College scholarship and, with Dr. Eric Gruver’s help, to make sure that the students make the most out of their college experience. I found the interview to be very helpful because it will definitely give me ammunition to prove that Honor’s kids are not what mainstream society thinks they are – they are not super nerds who think that school is all that matters. Probably the most intriguing thing that I learned from the interview was that while smarts is important in the selection process, it is not the most important component. Dr. Green stated that leadership qualities and involvement in extracurricular activities were considered more so than test scores. Moreover, the student does not even have to make the test score requirements. The student just has to show a passion for learning and an ability to lead others. One thing that I most certainly appreciated was that Dr. Green and Dr. Gruver have a plethora of events that students can sign up to do. Before you jump to conclusions, the events aren’t purely academic. The events range from watching A Christmas Carol to cutting loose at laser tag. As Dr. Green explains, the activities are to help the students get to know each other and to help the students learn that college isn’t all about studying and doing homework; you need to learn to step away from the stress and have some fun. I have not totally decided what my final project will look like, but I am hoping that it will be similar to Deborah Brandt’s essay that we read earlier on in the year in that I would like to follow a few students and show the world that the Honor’s students are just regular, fun-loving kids. To see my codes, refer to my previous research journal. As for the fieldnotes on the New Caney Church video, I was unable to hear the video at all. Therefore, I was unable to take any notes.

Research Journal 20

Table of Contents:

• Interviews
  • List of questions for the interview with Dr. Green scheduled on Thursday, November 5 at 2:30 pm.
  • List of possible questions for the people I choose to interview from the list of people who participated in the survey.
• Permission Forms
  • Permission slip prepared for Dr. Green, to be signed before commencing the interview.
  • Permission slip prepared for selected interviewees, to be signed before commencing the interview
• Survey Responses
  • Arielle McMahon (rec. Nov. 4)
  • Ashley Derrick (rec. Nov. 4)
  • Brianna Jackson (rec. Nov. 4)
  • Danielle Carter (rec. Nov. 4)
  • Hunter Joyce (rec. Nov. 4)
  • Jennifer Beard (rec. Nov. 4)
  • Jessica John (rec. Nov. 4)
  • Jessica Martin (rec. Nov. 4)
• Fieldnotes
  • “Studying With Distractions: UFC”
  • “Observing Non-Honors Class: Math 141-007”
  • “Study Groups: Effective?”
  • “Observing Honors Class: English 102”
  • “CWOW: Writing Local History”
  • “CWOW: The Life of 4 PhD Students”
• Writing Assignments
  • WA – 1
  • WA – 2
  • WA – 3

Codebook:

Honors

HD-E = Environment impacted the results

HD-K = Knowledge of the HC status impacted the results

HD-L = Desk location impacted the results

HD-P = Body position impacted the results

HS-E = Environment did not impact the results

HS-K = Knowledge of the HC status did not impact the results

HS-L = Desk location did not impact the results

HS-P = Body position did not impact the results

Non-Honors

ND-E = Environment impacted the results

ND-K = Knowledge of the HC status impacted the results

ND-L = Desk location impacted the results

ND-P = Body position impacted the results

NS-E = Environment did not impact the results

NS-K = Knowledge of the HC status did not impact the results

NS-L = Desk location did not impact the results

NS-P = Body position did not impact the results

CWOW

LP = Expresses literacy as a positive

LN = Expresses literacy as a negative

Research Journal 19

Box 31

In to the dogpile search engine, I typed the word “Intelligence.”

Stop1

The first result I found on dogpile was for lumosity.com, a site that provides games designed to “increase your intelligence.” The Featured Game was the Speed Match game, a game where you are shown an image of a shape and then a series of images following and you have to say whether or not the images match the first image you were shown. In the description of the game, it says that it is supposed to improve your brain’s reaction time. I played the game for a little while and while I am not sure if it improved my reaction time, I did improve the longer I played the game.

Stop 2

Next, I visited test-iq.com. This site offers an “American IQ Test” that features questions that put your reasoning the test. They ask questions that require you to complete a sequence of shapes and to complete a shape. They only had about 300 people on the visitor count for the day, which I found odd since it was supposedly the #1 IQ test in the country. It kind of made me wonder how many people visited the #2 IQ test in the country.

Stop 3

The third entry was Intelligence as explained by Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, intelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. What a mouth full! I could have said that intelligence is the mind’s ability to reason. Ta da! Of course, Wikipedia had to one-up me (lame). One thing that I found interesting was that they had this super long entry for intelligence…I had no idea that there was so much to intelligence. They also had several different types of intelligence, such as environmental and biological. I just never really realized how many different types of intelligence there were…hmmm….

Stop 4

The fourth link took me to a online pharmacy where they were trying to sell me a product called Omega Mind, otherwise known as intelligence in a bottle. This product is designed to promote memory and intelligence as well as psychic energy (?). I thought that it was interesting that some people that intelligence can be obtained through a pill. True, it could possible increase your capacity for learning, but I highly doubt that a pill could actually give us knowledge.

Stop 5

This site yet again introduced the idea that there are multiple intelligences. This site touched on Linguistic intelligence (“word smarts”), Logical-mathematical intelligence (“number/reasoning smarts”), Spatial intelligence (“picture smarts”), Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence (“body smarts”), Musical intelligence (“music smarts”), Interpersonal intelligence (“people smarts”), Intrapersonal intelligence (“self smarts”), and Naturalist intelligence (“nature smarts”). Again, I found it so interesting that there are supposedly different kinds of intelligence and kind of makes me wonder what kinds of intelligence I posses.

Research Journal 18

Box 26

Below are some phrases that are used by the “smart” people as well as the “average” people (Note: I use the quotations because what is considered smart and average are relative; I have met plenty of people who were classified as average that were actually smarter than I!)

“Smart People”

“I am doing well.”

“Jessica and I went to the store.”

“I am not doing that.”

“I do not have any of those.”

“When peeking through the window, I saw the trees.”

(pronunciation) “I ah-t (ought) to get my work done.”

The phrases above are examples of correct grammar usage. When examining my research site, I have noticed that the students classified as “smart” people tend to use the grammatically correct versions of the phrases rather than the more socially accepted vernaculars. This group also has a tendency to pronounce words in the proper form rather than in the socially accepted form.

“Average People”

“I am doing good.”

“Jessica and me went to the store.”

“I ain’t doing that.”

“I ain’t got any of that.”

“I saw the trees peeking through the window.”

(pronunciation) “I ort (ought) to get my work done.”

The above phrases are not exclusive only to the “average” class of people; I have seen instances where the “smart” ones used these as well. The only reason that I have put them under this category is that the improper use of grammar is more prevalent in this group. Pronunciation in this group also differs from the other group. This group tends to use the socially accepted pronunciations rather than the proper.