I have always had a lot of confidence in
the way I research backed up by the fact I attended the online seminars offered
by the library, took notes and established a research routine early on that I
have stuck
to persistantly. Although I have often been disappointed to never achieve an A
grade I have never thought that my research routine may have played fault in
that. This week I learned better.
To start with I researched the
web for the basic topic background for my position paper on the fluoride debate
i.e. Wikipedia, fluoridefree.org.nz, and the Ministry of Health website.
With an overall view of the topic and some keywords to search with I hit the
library online resource search engines. Discover gave me some great
resources so I skimmed through abstracts and selected 15 or so journal articles
that I felt were relevant.
I then got stuck into reading those journal
articles and writing a basic outline of my position paper. I never
second-guessed the articles I had picked until I started on our weekly lessons.
I felt confident using the library so I choose to skim through the first
week’s lectures and focused on week two’s lessons in case there was something
new to learn. While watching lesson one of week two I started to question
how I selected my chosen journal articles. I started to think about how I
researched and why. It stopped me in my tracks. I went back and
watched every lecture again and formulated a new plan of my research steps. I
also critiqued how I had carried out my previous research for the position
paper. Whoa Lorde what I found!!! My list of research sins is the following:
- Becoming complacent about using the
peer-reviewed filter,
- Selecting my articles from one
search done by Discover and not bothering to check results for keywords in
other engines,
- Not researching who the author is
and their credibility
- Not checking the year of
publication or if the information contained was relevant!!
Now excuse me while I hang my head in
shame. My previous confidence was unfounded but alas I can see the error of my
ways. I set up a basic research plan early on and then never revised or
questioned the process again. In psychology speak one would say I made a
familiarity heuristic i.e. I took a mental short cut to decide confidence in my
researching skills because the way I researched had worked for me before.
This heuristic allows people the world over to continue to make the same
mistake repeatedly, never realizing the problem. What works for me is my
willingness to change how I work to better what I produce and
that definitely played a part in realising my mistakes. I
realize I won’t become an A grade student overnight but I will get there. In
the meantime I will strike infallible off my list of student characteristics
and savor the fruit of a lesson learned. Time to get that rough draft
complete and start editing my heart out!!!!
I think the week 2 lectures definitely gave us all something to think about in terms of our previous research techniques. However I definitely believe they will be a big help to us for the rest of our time studying. It is easy to fall into the trap of doing the same thing every time, getting the same results and still believing our technique is right. This paper seems to challenge us to consider different ways of doing things that will help us get out of that trap.
ReplyDeleteNadine I highly enjoyed reading this, it was very funny! If only it was ok to reference Dr oz we would be away, no seriously don't do that.
ReplyDeleteI think you have been very careful in your selection of journals and your evidence should be quite solid.
I would like to know how credible that doctor/dentist was that spoke in Taupo. As credible as Dr Oz ?