My first Thesis writing experience

Writing thesis is not an easy process. However, it is very interesting and engaging for me. Once, one of our professors said that if you don’t have passion to write about this topic, don’t even start writing until you find the one you are really passionate about. Having studied for about 1,5 year on Master’s program I realised that this is a true  thing. Before starting my full thesis work, I was thinking a lot on my focus. I brainstormed the most actual issues in the educational system of Kazakhstan, even did my first steps in finding literature on those topics. But  I still felt no passion and was very upset.

This summer session we had an interesting course on Inclusive education. I had a chance to present and later to write final work on giftedness as a learning barrier. Before, I couldn’t even imagine that giftedness can become a learning barrier for some students. While doing my final assignment on Giftedness I found an interesting article about “Twice exceptional” students. I was really confused as hadn’t heard about such a notion ever.

Having read that article I thought about my teaching practice and came to the conclusion that I have a lot of twice exceptional students whom I teach. By the way, a twice exceptional student is a gifted student who at the same time has some other learning barriers (different disoders, challenging behavior, social-cultural barriers, etc.).

I tried to find some articles on this topic, and found out that this issue is been researched across the globe. Unfortunately, it is not deeply researched in Kazakhstan. It was one of the gaps in our research studies on education. Then I got access to one chat where parents and teachers talk about their children’s problems. Listing the free chat it became obvious to me that most of schools and families struggle with how to educate gifted students with ADHD disorder (twice exceptionals). I decided that I need to help the educational system and research this topic deeply.

Having started my research i faced several problems in the very beginning. As I said there is no information on this topic in the context of Kazakhstani education, so I was looking for the literature on my topic. And paper by paper I found a plenty of articles and even books on my topic. The best resource fir me was the online library system of NU with its great databases.

I learnt one more new thing for me about ethics approval. It was difficult to see any risks that my research participants can face. It seemed to me as there are no risks there. However, my supervisor, helped me to understand what do risks for participans really mean. And I looked at my research from a totally different angle.

So, I am passionate about my research, and that’s why feel happy.

I’d like to give one advice to the researchers that you should never lose motivation for doing your research and don’t be alone in this process. Talk to your groupmates, family, colleagues, students, professors, instructors and get brilliant ideas from them. As once the process starts it will continue forever.

Finally, I want to appreciate our instructors and professors for their work and constant support. The work they are doing is invaluable.
Wish everyone all the best in our research way!!!

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