Information Literacy - Research Project

Part I: An Introduction to Asking Questions



Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Identify a research question in psychology.

Instructions

The field of Psychology makes a number of very important contributions to our understanding of the world. It also provides a very unique perspective on problems and solutions. This series of tasks will teach you how to access the most trusted sources of psychological information and how to use and communicate that information to answer questions.

These instructions are long and detailed, but understand that this one document is covering multiple tasks. Take them one at a time and you will do well!

WRITING MECHANICS AND PLAGIARISM

Writing remains the primary method of professional communication. Writing is sometimes all anyone knows about you to formulate impressions so it is very important that you attend to detail at ALL TIMES no matter what the purpose of the writing is. This applies to all aspects of your Academic and Professional career.

Below are some resources that you can use (and keep) to apply to this project and ALL OTHER WRITING projects that you encounter!

Mechanics

Click HERE and you will open a PDF with a great number of resources and links related to writing mechanics.

Using Quotes

In Academic and Professional writing you should MINIMIZE the use of direct quotes in any of your writing. You are better to express you full understanding of the subject matter by transforming it into your own words (and providing a citation for it!)

Quotes should only be used when the statement can only be said in that particular way or when the word-for-word statements of someone is the issue. Otherwise, avoid them all together.

Plagiarism

One of the greater challenges of Academic and Professional writing is being sure that you don't engage in plagiarism. Put simply, plagiarism is when you copy someone else's work and call it your own, but it is quite a bit more complicated than that and this complexity can trip you up.

For instance, you have plagiarized even if you just write about someone's IDEAS without giving them credit. You are plagiarizing if you don't tell your reader that the idea or a quote is not your own!

To help with this we have found a webite where you can submit writings and have them checked for plagiarism! The FREE version of this resource has some limitations but you can simply copy your text from any source into the window and have it check for plagiarism! Click on the logo below and have PaperRater check your writng for Grammar and Plagiarism for free!

Click on Use Premium and follow the instructions!

Proposal

Review the information found here: Developing Good Research Questions

EXAMPLE

For my example I'm going to explore my interest in the use of technology in the classroom. I am interested in what would happen if EVERY student in my class had a device like an iPad and I tailored my teaching methods and expectations for that. Would my students learn better? Would it be too confusing? What impact WOULD the iPad have on the classroom and student learning?

So, I need to come up with a compelling question. I've done a bit of background research on this so I'm going to try this particular question:

"What impact does integrating iPad technology have on the learning outcomes, engagement, satisfaction, and retention of students at a community college?"

Notice that my question is clear and specific. My statement is formed as a question, uses some terms (integrating, iPad technology), it identifies some measures (learning outcomes, engagement, satisfaction, and retention), identifies a population (students at a community college), and appears to be something that CAN be researched and we CAN come up with some data.

Coming up with your own Question

Your task is to come up with an appropriate research question that you will use for the rest of the tasks in this assignment. Your best source for ideas is your textbook. Skim the chapters and see if there is any area in psychology that you are already interested in. Pick something that you LIKE to read and think about because you will be doing a lot of reading and thinking about it!

Once you think you have a pretty good question you need to do some preliminary work finding your Peer Reviewed Sources.

Peer Reviewed Articles

Review the information found in the following web page.

The Challenge

One of the more challenging aspects of finding information in the Peer Reviewed Literature has to do with terminology. The COMMON words that we use everyday are sometimes not the PROFESSIONAL words that the field of Psychology uses. For example:

When we are faced with a difficult internal conflict we might refer to it as being "undecided" or having "mixed feelings." The world of Psychology, however, calls it "Cognitive Dissonance."

Sometimes there are words that can mean a LOT of things even though we use the words every day...an example of this would be "Personality" or "Intelligence." While in every day life we may use these words every day, in the world of Psychology we have to be much more precise about what we mean by these terms.

How to discover Terminology and Names

Just like in every field, there are super stars! There are people doing work on your topic and they are famous (among other Psychologists) for what they know and do. They have often invented the terminology that you need in order to find peer reviewed articles. There are two really great sources of information to find the "stars (names)" and the "terminology."

Go ahead and type in the "typical" language terms associated with your question and see what you can learn about who is doing this kind of work and the terms they use to describe it.

EXAMPLE

Here is my question:

"What impact does integrating iPad technology have on the learning outcomes, engagement, satisfaction, and retention of students at a community college?"

In order to find out more about this topic I'm going to do some Google searches in both "regular" Google and Google Scholar (a place where I may actually find Peer Reviewed articles).

Remember, I'm trying to do a number of things here...I'm trying to learn who is doing work in this area, what the terms are, and possibly find some direct sources of community colleges that have studied this.

Here are some examples of the searches I have entered into Google...please note how I'm using quotes and the terms "and" to focus Google on what I'm looking for.

"iPad integration" "Community College" impact

iPad "Community College" "learning outcomes"

iPad "Community College" "engagement"

With these search efforts I located a number of community colleges that have done studies on their own iPad pilot programs. My terms were the ones used by these websites. I collected a number of researcher names and a number of different college names where I might be able to get more information.

Some of what I gathered will be useful in itself in my paper. Web sources are OK, as long as they are evaluated for validity and reliability as best as possible.

Finding Peer Reviewed Articles

Now that I have a bunch of sources of information and confirmation that the terms I used to define my question are good...it is time for me to do some searches in the KVCC databases.

KVCC maintains a data base of MILLIONS of academic articles. You can use these resources for free because you are a student at KVCC. Using the tools on the KVCC Library website you can narrow your search to retrieve ONLY articles that are "Peer Reviewed."

Using KVCC Library Services

EXAMPLE

Here is my question:

"What impact does integrating iPad technology have on the learning outcomes, engagement, satisfaction, and retention of students at a community college?"

I logged into the KVCC Library webpage and searched in the database titled "Academic Search Premier"

I quickly found out that "Community College" was not going to work. Community Colleges focus on teaching and those that teach there are less likely to publish. The web examples I got will have to suffice to support the question related to Community Colleges, but I still need some Peer Reviewed Articles.

I changed my search to "iPad" and "higher education" and limited my search to "Full Text" and "Academic Journals".

I got 7 good hits! Here are the titles of the articles I found.

  • A Federal Higher Education iPad Mobile Learning Initiative: Triangulation of Data to Determine Early Effectiveness
  • A Community of Practice Model for Introducing Mobile Tablets to University Faculty
  • Left to their own Devices: Medical Learners' Use of Mobile Technologies
  • The Game Changer: Using iPads in College Teacher Education Classes
  • Curricular Use of the iPad 2 by a First-Year Undergraduate Learning Community
  • Teaching and Learning
  • The Impact of Tablet Computers on Students with Disabilities in a Higher Education Setting

I'm off to a good start! Now that I have download each of these articles and review them for what they may contribute to my paper...which is to answer my question!

Submitting your Research Project Proposal

Once you have come up with an idea you need to communicate it to your instructor. In the same folder as this document you will find a quiz titled "Research Project - Part 1." There are three questions in this quiz, as outlined in the rubric below.

Your instructor will review your submission and provide feedback and a grade. You must get a 100 score on this quiz before moving on to the next step in the process so you can take this quiz over and over again until you get a 100.

Below is a small rubric outlining what the instructor will be looking for they are evaluating the quality of your question.

Research Project - Part I - Proposal

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE CHECKLIST YOU ARE TO USE AS YOU PREPARE YOUR PROPOSAL

Write out the research question that you are proposing to answer with your paper (remember, it has to be in the form of a question and you will be evaluated primarily on how well you answer this question).
30 pts
Write a brief essay as to why you want to answer this particular question.
30 pts
Write the titles of the three articles you have found that are Peer Reviewed (found in the EBSCO database) and will help you answer this question. (Include the authors names and the name of the Journal as well.) 40 pts