Reflection
Coming into this school year, I was very flustered on my beliefs and ability to engage in academic research. I always felt I was behind at my level regarding my performance of being able to do solid research for a given topic or subject. Following entering this class, I can easily determine my skills and abilities have skyrocketed due to the experience and overall engagement I received by taking this course. My college career I personally believe I always attempted to do the bare minimum due to assuming the research I was doing was not worth my while or overall any importance to me at all. This class heavily enlightened me on the importance academic research is not only for actual learning but for the experience you receive by doing so. Taking this course, I have gained plenty of helpful resources that overall benefited my researching skills. Specifically, my time spent working on my literature review boosted my overall abilities of researching single handedly. Especially because I have only previously done one literature review beforehand in my college career. My time spent on this research specifically regarding the effect of family involvement and their socio-economic status, enhanced my abilities on finding correct and proper sources that would be the most beneficial towards my research. Overall it is clear to say that my personal abilities of academic research have flourished following completing this course.
During my process of this academic research, I was entitled to find eight proper sources. While finding these sources I specifically searched for peer-reviewed articles due to those being the most trustworthy and beneficial for my research. Knowing this information I was able to successfully find eight of the most appropriate and beneficial articles regarding my research. I specifically looked for similarities and differences between all these articles in order to make my research stronger by having multiple different sources of background which made my research more trustworthy. Following completing my annotated bibliographies, as previously stated I believed I found the best eight articles possible for my research, so I did not believe it would be appropriate or useful to add or drop any of my previous sources. This course has benefited me with various amounts of new skills. One I believe is my most beneficial is my abilities to find the most trustworthy and useful sources that help conclude my academic research. A challenge that occurred when completing this research was finding the correct amount of trustworthy sources that regards my topic of the effect of family involvement and their socio-economic status. I overcame this problem by utilizing multiple different outlets of research sources, such as the Greenwood Library database and JSTOR. These outlets helped me spread my variety of academic articles in order to find the appropriate amount while also being the most trustworthy.
My first day taking this course I was worried about my ability to do good research. My confidence levels were very low due to my overall experience being low regarding completing academic research. Especially going into completing the Literature Review, I was very concerned about my abilities of completing this assignment. But with my knowledge that I gained from this course and the experience I received completing this assignment my confidence and abilities grew. A main takeaway I have gained from this course is being able to have the ability to “Think like a researcher”. Being able to do so enhances your abilities to do the most beneficial research. Overall, I have gained a great amount of skills and have gained a great amount of confidence regarding my abilities and skills of completing academic research.