Eeek! Where Am I Going With This?

So I thought I had my inquiry project all mapped out from the initiation to the survey and then the implementation. I am now a tad off kilter. Where did I go wrong? Due to my pride I refuse to say I did anything wrong but I may be a little bit overwhelmed. This feeling was not there until I saw on Facebook that we had exactly 2 months or 60 days until graduation which meant this project has to be done WAY before that. I took a step back, met with some people, sent a few harassing e-mails to people I think can help me, cleaned out my gmail (which is surprisingly very calming), ate way too many carbs, and did a week of Pilates for Dummies. It all sort of helped as I came to the conclusion that this is a cycle where I have to refine, define, revise, add, subtract all parts of this project, especially in the planning part and realize that once that is all set, I simply have to collect my data and those numbers will help me do the rest. 


But when will the planning be done? I can only hope soon, but I need it to be perfect and if it can't be perfect I need these blueprints to be up to my standards= perfect.


I am at the stage where I have created a survey for my participants, ie science students at my high school placement, and working on it to create questions that really get to what I need to ask. I do not want to trick these students, I do not want to ask unnecessary questions, but I do want to ask questions that will help me to extract pertinent information. Looking at this project through the social capital lens (possible project title but for now I will call it PROJECT INQ) has indeed focused this study and I am getting more comfortable with its parameters. I have defined the pieces of social capital as follows:


Trust- Trustworthiness ins the science classroom between students and teachers. The teacher delivers the information but also needs to be able to instill confidence in students in the subject area and creates an environment that leads to success.


Networks- This is how students receive their information and can be greatly influenced by a variety of factors. These networks can be strong or weak however they are means to guide information in the social structure of the science classroom.


Norms- These are the behaviors and cultural manners that are seen throughout the classroom and shared among all grade levels that participate in science.


My next steps are to revise, refine, distribute my survey and input my data. I am not an Excel Wiz but by the end of this I just might be :)