Prior to my Sociology 345-03/04 course, I have always been interested in research projects and the steps people would take to collect data. I have never had an opportunity to participate in research, which was a great experience. The most interesting part was the statements we collected from our respondents. They were people that we had never met, which was interesting to hear what they enjoyed and disliked about our research project. Many respondents found enjoyment relating to spending quality time with their family. I have changed my understanding that survey research is difficult to collect because your analyzed data is based on the respondents, and a majority of the time surveys do not return to the sender. I respect researchers that collect data and analyze it for their job because the amount of detail that is required is astronomical. I used sources from online databases that were located on the Longwood University website, which were helpful because they were connected to other researchers and were peer-reviewed. I checked sources and did research on authors to discover their credibility relating to Parental Involvement. My research was focused on the positive effects of parental involvement that help children or the neglect of parental involvement, which hurt the children’s development into citizens. I am a Political Science Major with a Minor in Criminal Justice, so I used previous sources relating to delinquency and parent involvement. This helped me gather more understanding of the research and the correct sources to use. Some challenges that I experienced related to the information I collected about parental involvement, were whether it was relevant to my topic. Another challenge was the limited amount of resources there are for specific topics, such as statistics on child development in relation to the number of guardians there are in one household. I feel more confident in my ability to conduct research from surveys and have been able to benefit from online tools to help organize data. My knowledge has also increased relating to the issue of some children not having enough parental involvement in their lives. I feel more capable of creating a survey that asks proper questions that are not biased or double-barreled questions. The research conducted this semester has displayed mothers are typically more involved, as demonstrated by the respondents. There is a need for parents to set time aside for their children and spend time with them. Parents participating in small activities or being involved with the child’s school is beneficial to the development of the child.