Over my course here at Longwood University I have learned how to better structure my writing as well as include more methodology within my papers. One of the first papers I wrote here at Longwood University was in my Special Education class. Within that class I had to research different programs and explore how they conducted their experiment and use that information to explain why that program is useful to individual’s with special needs. Within this paper you can see that there is little to no methodology used. There was no clear understanding of the methodology was important. Over the course of my sophomore and junior year I developed how to completely understand methods and how and why they were used. Another paper I wrote that shows my growth within writing using methodology in my Kinesiology 320 class. Within that class I had to explore different healthcare system and compare them to Peru. I had to explore how different healthcare programs were implemented and the methodology behind them. This allowed me to understand how different methods may cause different results. I also learned that every population is different and there is not right or wrong methodology to make something successful. Another class that helped me develop my methodology writing was Sociology 345. Within Sociology 345 I learned how to accurately write an APA formatted methods section within a paper. I was able to conduct a survey and write an accurate description of what methods was being used. I now feel as if my writing has improved greatly. I can not only understand methodology writing but I can also write it.

How Will it Help

          As a future behavioral technician, I will be able use my skills and knowledge learned in your research methods and statistics. I would like to specifically with individuals under 21 years old. One of my future tasks is to stay updated on current data being done to help me understand what is working. Without my knowledge of what methodology explore I would not know how fully understand the data. I will need to understand what method is being used how the data is being presented. This will allow me to see what national methods is working within the behavioral analysis field. Knowing the different and new methods I would be able to implement them or change them to help my current patient. I would be able to see different types of programs and treatments and how they are working. With my knowledge learned in my research methods and statistics courses I would be able to identify different how the program or technique is succeeding or failing and why. This would allow me to be able to observe the program or technique on my own patient and see if I get the same outcome. Being a future behavioral technician, I know that no two individuals are the same. No one thing is going to work for everyone. With my knowledge I am able to correctly implement to the program or technique. Overall, I would be able to understand how the program or technique is helping a certain disability or could possibly help.

Major Aspects of Methodology

          There are 4 major aspects of social research methodology. They are surveys, experiments, field research and secondary data analysis. Each one has different attributes that makes them useful for different types of research being done. Surveys are used when someone wants to explain a trend or compare data of a period of time. Within surveys you have open ended and closed ended questions. Open ended questions are questions where the respondent have to use their own words to answer a question. Closed ended are questions where the respondent has a choose an answer that has already be pre-chosen. Surveys can be qualitative data or quantitative data. Experiments are used when a research want to identify a cause and effect correlation between something. Doing an experiment allows you to manipulate variable to be able to see if there is a cause and effect correlation. Experiments can last hours up to years. Experiments are quantitative data. Field research is used for researcher to be able to observe situations and/or subjects to help connect any correlation between the two. Most field research is done over an extended period of time and studied heavily. Being able to conduct field research give you a great insight of how the situation and/or subject changes over a period of time. Field research is qualitative data. Secondary data analysis is used to answer a question from previous data that has been collected. Secondary data analysis allows you to be able to dive deeper into the data. You can collect secondary data analysis by using large surveys or data that you conducted yourself. Secondary data analysis is quantitative data. Each aspect of social research methodology allows you to dive deeper into a certain realm of research.