Apr 3, 2018
By Janet Ready, Instructor
In the Capstone course of the Bachelor of Recreation Management, it’s all about the questions…..or just one good question…..a solid research question that is centered in community recreation and inspired by the student’s own curiosity. This really good research question leads the RECR 4400 students on a 13 week exploration toward the best answer they can find. Through exhaustive literature reviews, interviews, surveys, observation they explore the question. On that self-directed journey there are highs and lows and “aha’s!” and frustration and self-doubt.
This year, the students handed in their Major Papers on Sunday night, the journey complete.
You can read their questions and a brief one paragraph summary on the Recreation Studies Department, student research page. (Right now 2016 and 2017 are published and this term’s 2018 Research summaries should be posted in a few weeks at the end of the term).
Asking one good question and researching into an answer is really hard work (ask any of the BRM students who have completed this 6 credit Capstone course). But nothing really worthwhile comes easy, and the reward to this work is to be able to contribute scholarly research that is meaningful to the recreation field.
In that spirit I wanted to share a few quotes from some Agency Advisors who have read their student’s Applied Major Project. (Each student works with an Agency Advisor in a Recreation Organization as part of the course).
“I feel as though our organization will be better because of (this student’s) inspirational paper.”
“I intend to share the results of (this student’s) work, and the recommendations provided with other planners and recreational facilities managers. The recommendations are strong, concrete, and implementable.”
“I found the information in the major project extremely informative and something that should be reviewed within our recreation programming.”
“I'm really impressed with (this student’s) thoroughness and already it has me thinking of lots of possibilities for partnership. This has evolved into a very useful document.”
It is exciting to work with the recreation students as they ask good questions, work hard to find the answers, and contribute in a meaningful way to the recreation field.