Introduction

My research interest evolved from my journey with education. I returned to college in my late 30s and observed most students were older than me in my online classes. After completing my first master's degree, I returned to face-to-face classes during my Management of Business Administration degree. The classroom had older students in comparison to traditional students. I also noticed I was the only Hispanic female among the older students. When I decided to pursue my doctorate, two of my students from my Zumba class had also elected to pursue their doctoral studies. Our commonality was we were Mexican women in our 40s who decided to return to college after some time away. These observations left me curious to learn students were older and why Hispanic women were returning to college later in life. Additionally, my challenges with learning technologies and financial and family barriers left me feeling I could not be the only one facing these challenges. Thus, my focus area steered to adult learners who are women and the challenges they face with the technologies used for learning.

The ISDT program coursework guides students through the research process to find gaps and provide solutions for real-world issues. My personal experience with the research process for literature review guides me to review the literature on my topic and present a paper supported by themes and theories. The research process will help me identify the literature gap in my topic. I gained competency in researching topics and creating research questions through the research process.

The coursework for the ISDT program exhibits appropriate tools and resources to create a solution for the results of a research paper. Through my coursework, I learned to address critical issues such as continuing work through the 2020 pandemic. Experience with the Learning Management System (LMS) assisted in creating a solution to an issue by implementing instructional materials to help educate workers on work policies through effective training. An LMS like Canvas can create, develop, and implement training for my focus area. My competency grew with working with LMS to create future learning and training for projects and current positions.

Being a part of Dr. Cheng's article "Patterns of Emotional Experiences in Online Learning Environments during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan" presented an opportunity to present a professional conference. In October 2022, I made my first presentation at the Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) conference. Though I presented alone, I gained competency in presenting.

I look forward to the next presentation in April 2023 for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference for the "Systematic review of first-generation students in online learning environments."

The proposal paper I wrote for the course EDLD 7372 showed me different theories and frameworks for literature work using qualitative research. Going through the literature review, interview process, coding, and delivery of the paper built a competency for using these tools for my focus area. I have the experience to create a proposal for my focus area.

My scholarship competency continues to expand with the experiences the ISDT program has given me. I will continue to research and engage in the research process to assist my growth in research. I plan on partnering up with one of my peers to get our "Promoting retention and reducing attrition in online graduation programs" work published. Practice makes perfect. Therefore I will take on opportunities to continue to step outside my comfort zone, apply the right tools and resources learned in the ISDT program and take my focus area to the next level of research.