Aiyana Henson

Research Experience

December 1, 2021

My initial knowledge of academic research wasn’t as adequate as I would have liked it to be for this course, but I was able to learn a lot. We spent a lot of time discussing ethical research methods, how to find a sample, and how to interpret qualitative and quantitative data. I would often use Google Scholar to find online sources to use for my research assignments. To narrow my search for finding specific research articles to use I would use quotation marks around the search. It was very beneficial and allowed easier access to what I needed. To ensure that the sources I was using were reliable I would check fact check and compare other articles to find similarities and drastic differences. Sometimes I would even research a little about the author(s) to see if they’re in proper authority to put out information for the world to use. I added two additional sources for my final paper due to the need for me to find more information on the topics mentioned in the paper.  A few challenges that occurred while doing research included coming up with questions for our survey and presenting our findings through graphs. Researchers were prompted to create questions based on the learning objectives in each activity. It was a bit hard to come up with relevant questions to correlate with the research question as well. Researchers also had to work with a statistical commuting program to analyze the data being collected. Whether that was from qualitative or quantitative responses.  Fortunately, my confidence in conducting research has improved greatly. I now know how to carry out research experiments ethically, work with a consenting sample, along with analyzing qualitative and quantitative data.  In brief, summary, thinking like a researcher entails considering your research question and coming up with an answer by testing hypotheses. You must gather a sample, provide a way of testing or creating a survey, then analyze the data to develop important findings. There’s also the option of writing an article to discuss the problem and the process taken to raise awareness and create potential solutions.