As I have mentioned before, formal academic research has never been my strong suit. Writing academic research papers has always been a task I dread doing. When I realized I had to take a Public Relations Research course, I rolled my eyes a little. However, this course was not focused on formal academic research like what I was used too.

In this course, I spent a lot of time learning what Public Relations research was and why it is used. I learned it is very important because many times professionals in Public Relations are expected to help with issues their organization is having. In order to figure out what exactly the issue is and how to fix it, sometimes research needs to be conducted. I learned about various types of Public Relations research, but in this course I had two major assignments. One being a focus group and the other a content analysis. I favored the focus group more because it was an informal type of research and felt like a group interview. The content analysis was more formal and a quantitative study. Both were challenging in their own regards because I had to work with a partner and complete many steps in order to finish it on time.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sjEZxZQvorE4AOHLo3ZMMbwLJGNmd_4ahKNHHBiEnyM/edit?usp=sharing

The link above is a recap of my focus group assignment. My research partner and I had to discuss our study in depth by providing an executive summary, our research goals, methodology, results and more. This was my favorite assignment for this course because my partner and I were able to hear from other Longwood students and gain their perspectives.

This course taught me that I don’t need to dread doing research and that it is very helpful, even in Public Relations. I am glad I took this course so I could learn about other research methods and challenge myself.