User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Overall, my experience in designing and carrying out a field experiment was very eye opening. This was my first time completing research of this length. I had a few challenges along the way and learned a lot about what it takes to be successful in a study like this. Firstly, I struggled with time management. This being my first online course, it was hard to stay on top of things when there were no weekly deadlines. Additionally, I realize now that I did not put enough time into the initial planning of my field study. I had the general idea of what I wanted to do, however, there were details like where to sample, putting enough information in my field journal and even my initial hypothesis that I did not plan enough. It would have saved me time overall if I spent a bit of extra time planning in the beginning before actually going out and collecting samples. Considering the amount of planning, testing and time that went into my relatively small field assignment, my appreciation for the ecological theory and the ecologists who do research has definitely increased.
