My process of conducting academic research has changed greatly throughout this semester. In previous classes, I have analyzed pre-existing literature, but this is the first time I have done my own research and had my own data. To collect our data, our class created a survey that the Head Start parents could take. This experience helped change my research process due to learning the importance of the order of questions, how they’re worded, and the content of what we asked. It was also impactful to go out in person to the Head Start locations to try and get people to take the survey. It was also a new experience to use the program ‘R’ to understand the data we got from the survey. I then had to write down what the data was saying beyond the numbers, which was a new experience for me since in past research experiences I just had to read the findings of other studies.
The first thing our class did when starting this research process was writing our literature reviews where we needed to find sources relevant to our topic. I only had a vague idea of what I wanted my personal paper to focus on, so when evaluating and selecting sources for this process, I looked for articles that made interesting points that I thought I could take something away from for my own research. As my idea of what I wanted to write about started to become clearer, I ended up rewriting the bulk of my literature review and replacing around half of my sources. I decided that I wanted to focus specifically on aspects of income that can create barriers to parent involvement, so I searched for articles that made arguments around that topic so I could better understand the data that my class had received from our survey. While some of the articles I had picked out originally were interesting, they were adding nothing to my own argument, so I replaced them with articles that better fit my paper.
One major challenge that was experienced during the research process was how only a few people filled out the survey when it was first emailed out. For this reason, students from our class had to go out to different Head Start locations to try and get more responses. For my group, this was challenging because many of the children were going home by bus, so we could not speak directly to the parents. Instead, we just had to send flyers home with the children. This did increase the number of responses, but it was discouraging to see so few at first.
My confidence in doing research has increased greatly throughout the semester. I remember feeling a little intimidated since I had never done anything like this. However, with each assignment and step in the process, I felt myself growing more comfortable while realizing my own abilities. After we got the results back from our survey, I found that I really enjoyed digging deeper into the meaning behind the numbers. While I was initially concerned about my ability to find and recognize patterns within the data, I found that to be one of the most rewarding and enriching experiences of the whole process. This class has made me look forward to doing more of my own research in the future.
The experiences I have had during this class have helped me understand what it means to “think like a researcher”. One important aspect of this is viewing research and information through a critical eye by analyzing findings and also looking for gaps in previous research. It is also important to be curious as a researcher. This means a desire to learn, ask questions, and seek a deeper understanding of what is going on in the world around you. This curiosity was very important in my process of trying to understand the deeper picture of what the data I found meant in the larger picture of research done previously on this topic. I also believe that thinking like a researcher means that one must engage in a process of exploration, analysis, and synthesis to understand a topic.