Homework Responses Week 1

As a consumer of research, knowledge of research methods is a valuable skill to set the individual up for success.  As this week’s content provided “while research to contribute is “careful study that is done to find and report new knowledge about something” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).”  It is one thing to research a topic or item of interest for general knowledge, but another to do the research to contribute to a project or solve a problem.  Knowing different research methods will also allow individuals or companies to know what areas of research they may need to develop more time to in order to not jump to the first research method that may be the easier way out to help them, but could also create bias.  Conducting different research methods out of our comfort zone allows the individual not only to research to learn, but also to contribute to the overall mission/goal of the research.  Scholarly research is clearly more than just consumer research but as professionals in our respective fields, we could conduct scholarly research as experts.  A lot of surveys or questionnaires tend to go to Subject Matter Experts who can conduct the research because they know better than the average consumer researcher.

 

Although not necessarily scholarly research, it’s likely we have all been a consumer of research in other classes researching topics for projects and course papers/assignments.  Anyone can go to google and type in a topic and get hundreds of results…but are those results really going to provide the content needed for a well-rounded paper?  While conducting research, my first resource is the APUS Library.  Once there, I click on “advanced” search where I then am able to put in my search terms.  There is a lot of great information and options/filters when searching.  I always click on “peer-reviewed journals” off to the left-hand side.  This allows me to search those articles that I know have been reviewed by others and will give me a good starting framework.  I actually just went through something similar in terms of research in my previous course.  I initially looked to a web-site regarding my topic subject but also went to the APUS Library where I found articles on my subject that provided me with information I wasn’t able to find on the open web and information that was peer-reviewed and done likely as scholarly research.  “Data Collection” in our reading this week hit the nail on the head for me.  “Being a consumer of research is more than merely reading research.  It is being knowledgeable as to what to look for to determine the value of the research.”  We can do research all day long, but if we don’t know what we’re really looking for, sometimes the information that could be valuable is lost because we don’t understand how to pull out the data that highlights what we are trying to convey to our audience.  The more credible our sources are and the way we interpret them will give a sound argument for the research conducted. 

 

 

Resources

Week 1:  Consumer of Scholarly Research – Considerations for the Proposal. Unit 2 of 10.  Why Research is Important – Two Types of Research and Data Collection – Being an Educated Consumer