Reflective Journal: Research Challenges in Disability Support

This reflective journal details a student's experience researching challenges faced by support employment organizations assisting individuals with mental and intellectual disabilities. The student discusses the benefits of using focus groups and the challenges encountered, such as determining appropriate group sizes and addressing sensitive topics. The reflection highlights the importance of support from educators and supervisors in building confidence. It also addresses difficulties in participant recruitment and the subsequent narrowing of the study's focus to disability support in Australia. Ethical considerations, including maintaining privacy and confidentiality, are emphasized, alongside the importance of adhering to organizational policies and utilizing a research timetable for effective task management. The student also reflects on ensuring the wellbeing of participants to foster trust and loyalty, which is essential for data protection and maintaining participant privacy.

Name 1
Reflection
Student’s Name
University
Instructor
Course
Date

Name 2
Reflection
I feel my research on the challenges faced by support employment organizations that deal
with people with mental and intellectual disability to be on the right time frame. The use of
focus groups has been beneficial to this work since this instrument increases the reliability of the
qualitative results gathered. The qualitative findings of this study will offer more insights on the
topic regarding the issues discussed in the topic. One of the challenges that I encountered in the
study was determining the number of people to be used in the focused group and the sensitivity
of the topic being discussed. This means that I had challenges determining how sensitive
different topics were and how to assign different resources to the topics based on their strength.
This challenge was due to my lack of prior knowledge on focused group discussions which I had
raised with my field educator and external supervisor. The two encouraged me and offered me
the support that enabled me to build confidence for the research.
The participants in the group study were mainly consultants and disability support staff
who had deeper experience and knowledge on the study topic. The choice of this participant was
relevant to the study because they had the first-hand experience on the challenges facing
employment organizations. The major challenge that I had in recruiting the participants was the
unwillingness of most organizations to support or participate in the research which made me
more worried on whether I will be able to raise enough participants for the study. This made me
seek the assistance of my external supervisor who advised me to concentrate the study on
disability support in Australia and mainly collect data from the organization. This made my
research easier since I did a focused group discussion on disability support in Australia.
I selected the samples based on the protocols that existed which ensured that I adhered to
the standards so that I can limitation misinterpretations and misunderstandings during the study.

Name 3
This protocol grouping allowed me to address policy issues that could yield more results for the
study. Despite that in my opinion, ethical considerations are important in this research by
maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of the participants sampled for the study. Privacy and
confidentiality of information means preserving the comments, views, and suggestions of the
participants by not revealing their anonymity. This means that the participants had to be assured
that the contents of the study will be used strictly for research purposes and at the same time
assuring them that their anonymity will not be disclosed to any third party. Therefore, I believe
that ethical considerations need to be maintained in the whole study from data collection to
presentation of the findings. As a placement student, I tried to practice the required
organizational policy standards when carrying out the research while at the same time seeking
clarity from my filed coordinator on any issues that seemed unfamiliar.
Lastly, I think a research timetable is also an important tool for organizing and executing
tasks. This allowed me to plan the time and resources that I had adequately to ensure that the
research is done on time and meets all the requirements. Further, the wellbeing of the samples
was catered to increase loyalty, trust, and dependence on the participants. This means that data
protection is efficient for the researcher to maintain the privacy and security of the participants.