Research Experience

  • How has your process for doing academic research changed since the beginning of the semester?
    • My process for academic research has changed significantly since the beginning of the semester. I have not only improved my skills, but the process as well. Often times, I was doing quick searches to find sources and determining their eligibility of use by the abstract. However, this semester, I have taken the process of reading several sources and allotting bigger time frames for research. I also have taken the time to select key searching terms that would be most accurate for the research I was looking for.
  • Describe your process for evaluating and selecting sources for your research assignments. How did you decide which sources to use and which not to use? Did you add or change sources for your final assignment after turning in your annotated bibliography? If so, please explain why.
    • I began to read through sources while taking notes and applying parts of the sources to sections of papers I want to write about. As I progressed through sources, I started to be even more specific about things I want to write about, and if it didn’t serve a purpose in the writing, I don’t force it to. I decided the sources I was going to use by determining if 1) I understood what was being stated, and 2) by seeing if the sources were applicable to a time frame in which the sources were relevant (e.g., 2010-2021). For the final assignment, I added 1 source which served as the information from where I got my attention grabber.
  • What challenges did you encounter when doing research for your assignments in this class? What strategies did you use to overcome them?
    • The biggest challenges I had when doing research for the assignment was finding appropriate sources to use. I had troubles starting the initial process of research, but after finding the first source to use, it became easier. After I found the first sources, I began to search through their references, leading me to more and better sources.
  • Have your attitudes and perceptions (confidence level) about doing research changed over the course of the semester?
    • My confidence level about doing research has changed significantly over the course of the semester. Not only have I been doing research for parental involvement, but have been doing research for compliment type and their effects of underestimation. As the semester progressed, I began to feel more comfortable in the process of researching, especially with faculty support. Instead of being unsure as to whether an article would fit, I would read it over a few times. Sometimes, I ran research articles by other people to get another opinion on whether it coherently made sense.
  • Think about the research you’ve done this semester, and describe what you think it means to “Think Like a Researcher?”
    • To “Think Like a Researcher” means to think critically and analytically about the information that is being applied to what you’re researching. To think like a researcher implies that the data analysis and research you’ve developed and gathered is accurate and relevant to the information you’ve displayed. That all the research is present, whether there are positive things (good feedback) or negative things (low response rate).