Throughout my time in this course, I believed that I gained insight and experience towards researching and evaluating data. This is the first time where I formally conducted research, and evaluated that data to turn it into my own study. That being said, this reflection provides an opportunity to critically evaluate my research design, methods, processes, and overall experience with this study. In this reflection, I intend to assess my challenges, attitude, perception, and process for my study.
The perception that I had for doing and completing research in the beginning of the year was unbiased. I had a simple understanding of academic research and had no expectation of doing research. Over time in this course, I developed a perception of research. I came to recognize that completing research has a very tedious process. To formally do research one must find specific sources, then format those sources correctly on paper, and so on. I did not perceive that research was done so formally, so formally in fact that I had to be IRB certified.
My process for doing academic research has changed greatly since the start of the semester. I believe my quality of research has changed for the better, as I learned new techniques to do so. One of these techniques was learning how to expertly process the information gained from academic research. An example of how I did this was by dividing the information into small sections to better understand the descriptions and explanations of said research. Though this tactic is overlooked in some fields, I believe that it helped me gain a better evaluation. Another technique I learned was to understand the purposes of research. With this can I can recognize what the research was for, and its overall purpose. An example of how I implemented this was by looking for sources. I used this technique to make sure that the studies I found had the same overall purpose as my study so that they supported one another.
The method I used for evaluating and selecting sources was quite meticulous. First and most importantly, I made sure that the source was an academic one, as to provide further credential towards my study. I also made sure that the source’s study was similar enough to my study as to expect any arising challenges or results that could happen in my study. Another matter I made sure to happen in my sources was to find any bias, or misguided research in the sources, However, I did choose one source that did have racial bias, only to contrast their study and mine. I found that this bias led to different results in their study compared to mine. I also made sure that the sources I choose were credible, with peer-evaluation and up to date data. I incorporated two more sources towards the study as to further strengthen my introduction. These sources followed my meticulous process for evaluating sources, therefore they are credible and beneficial.
One of the challenges that arose during the research for my assignments was finding the specific sources that I needed. Because of my process for selecting sources, it was difficult to obtain enough sources so that my research was credible. I was able to find enough sources by using different websites that enabled me to complete this process. These websites included Google Scholar, and the Longwood Library page. Another challenge that arose was completing the quantitative analysis portion of this study. The number of quantitative results was impressive as there were plenty of findings to go off of. To combat this, I used the website RStudio, which helped me organize my results. The website also gave me the mean and standard deviation of the quantitative data.
What I believe it means to “Think Like a Researcher” is to use critical thinking and use every aspect of curiosity in research. I used this approach towards the research I’ve completed during this course. Through critical thinking it aided me to gain an understanding of the purpose of research and the overall value of it. Curiosity itself is what drove me to complete this research as I was eager towards seeing my results and comparing it to my sources. Overall, I believe there are many aspects of “Thinking Like a Researcher,” but I believe that critical thinking and curiosity are major components of it.