6th update

Hi everyone! This week I began conducting my research! Dr. McEntarfer and I met up last week and talked about what exact activities I will be doing for my research. We agreed on a pre and post-test to measure empathy in the children. I have four girls who agreed to participate in the study. The measures I will be taking are a series of questions that I will ask after reading a book to them. The two books that my mentor and I chose is the Paper bag Princess, and A Picture Book of Helen Keller. These books give me the ability to talk about and seek empathetic qualities that the participants have. The pre and post test are the same questions so I will be able to clearly identify differences between the beginning of my research/activism and after. Between the time I am conducting the pre and post tests I am doing a few activities with the children. I am doing an activity that is called wrinkled Wanda and the bullying thermometer. Both these activities help the participants explore what bullying they have witnessed or experienced, different forms of bullying, tips on how to stop bullying in the process, and raising awareness of the effects of bullying to both the bully, the bullied, and the witnesses. These activities are my activism for the project and my tests is the research I am conducting. I may also create an observation day when I create a chart of empathetic qualities and bullying qualities during Fun Friday. I am choosing this day because I normally end up watching the kids at the club interact and I may as well take advantage and get some data on the type of environment the club is, but I still have to talk to my mentor about this idea. I am excited about actually starting to conduct the research! I am also creating goals for myself on getting the introduction part of the paper completed. It's just hard trying to find the motivation to keep doing small parts of the paper when I have other homework to complete.