This Sociology class with Dr. Pederson has changed my perspective on research, and it has also taught me many things about the subject. I did not really have a set process for doing academic research before the beginning of the semester, but after this class, I now have a better idea on the process of doing academic research. I have seen a significant amount of change in my approach to academic research, but I also have realized that I have much to learn before I can consider myself “good” at academic research. I have learned a lot of different tactics and I have also made necessary changes to my approach for academic research. For example, before I took this class, I used to try to rush any research I had to do and find the bare minimum when it comes to resources. Another example is that before this class, I had no idea how to create a literature review. After submitting my “Literature Review” and “Final Paper” assignments, I was able to use the criticism to better my skills. After taking this class, I learned to take my time analyzing sources and making sure that they could be used in the research assignments. In order to evaluate and select sources for my research assignments, I had to use the skills I have learned in this class to do the task in a proper way. I analyzed each source closely to make sure that each one had plentiful information I could use in order to do the assignment correctly. I made some mistakes in creating a Literature Review for these sources, but I believe that the sources I picked were ones that directly correlated to the topic and could be useful. I faced many challenges when doing research for my assignments for this class. One example of a challenge I faced are the multiple resources that I found that were vaguely related to the topic when doing the Literature Review assignment. Those resources had generic information about the Head Start program and the Andy Taylor Center, but it didn’t have the right information that I needed to obtain the right knowledge about our main research topic in class which is “How Does Family Fun Time Activities Affect Family Involvement?”. To overcome that problem, I learned how to specify searches in our database. I also made sure that these sources were legitimate by checking if they were peer reviewed and were published somewhat recently. By learning that strategy, I was able to hone in on the resources that I needed to help me with the topic. I used some resources so I can learn more about the Head Start program and the Andy Taylor Center, but I removed any other resource that did not relate to any aspect of the overall topic. Another challenge I faced was having to do a lot of corrections on some of my assignments for this class. I was able to overcome that problem by carefully examining the criticisms on each of those assignments and making an effort to not make the same mistakes on the next assignment. Before this class, I had little to no knowledge on how to conduct proper research. I used to do research incorrectly and that I was glad I could learn how to do it the proper way. I also did not really care much about research in general but after this class, I have a newfound interest in research. I was able to learn many great things such as new ways to operate Microsoft Excel, better overall researching skills, and I was able to learn how to operate RStudio which is a great research software that I think would be useful in the future. I still have much to learn about research, but that will be a lot easier since I am now interested in it. To me, the phrase “Think Like a Researcher” means that one must be able to analyze different aspects of a topic in an analytical way and use it to explain trends or themes. For example, when looking at the mean for one of the 0-10 scales on the Family Fun Time survey, you are able to analyze different aspects of the answer. If the mean was an eight for a question like “How Much Did Your Family Enjoy the Activity?”, one could conclude that a majority of families enjoyed the activity and there were only a few who didn’t, but if you were to think like a researcher, you could find a correlation between the demographic information, and the enjoyment of each family. I know the first example may seem like a simple analysis, but before this semester, my mind would immediately come up with the simple reasoning of “Most of these families enjoyed the survey”, but I wouldn’t examine the data to look for any correlations. Overall, this class has turned me into a better researcher, and I hope to use these skills in the future.