ENG 123 5.W: Research Methods; Research Questions

Today’s Plan:

• Brief Review of Research Methods
• Reading from Wayne Booth’s The Craft of Research
• Taking a Swing at Booth’s Questions
• Reminder: No class on Monday, September 26th

Next week I will share a proposal project, asking you to use the research you’ve conducted this semester to develop a formal proposal. You’ll “ontologize” (categorize) your research, revising (or rethinking) the material you presented last Friday. You will identify a set of research articles that you have to read. You will pitch a primary research project. And you will identify a *purpose* and an *audience* for your research. Today is about planting a seed for that upcoming assignment, to get you thinking about thinking.

Primary Research Methods

Secondary research is when you read already existing research. Primary research is when you roll up your sleeves and create some new knowledge. There’s a wide range of qualitative methods for making new research. Here’s a list of options that are likely to work in this class:

• Surveys: requires you develop questions, usually using a Likert scale. Crafting good survey questions can be much more challenging than you think. Maybe one or two open-ended questions. Requires you to identify a distribution plan–where can you post/share this thing to gain responses
• Interviews: requires you identify and gain consent of an expert in a field. Writing and conducting interviews are art forms.
• Focus Groups: focus groups are like group interviews. Often, it can be productive to assign the group a task (which of these four things are most troublesome/problematic/valuable). Leading a focus group requires good groups management skills (and Dungeon Masters out there?)
• Corpus Analysis: This is collecting and analyzing texts based on a “coding scheme” or “critical lens.” I am currently analyzing a collection of job advertisements, looking for pre-determined technologies, competencies, and personal characteristics. Two years ago, my Rhetorical Theory class analyzed a large collection of news reports on the George Floyd murder, looking specifically for mentions of Trump or Obama, how the reports framed protestors/looters (etc), and making an assessment of whether the article focused on factual reporting or political commentary (using a Likert Scale).

For inspiration, here’s a list of projects from the last time I taught ENG 123:

• Men, Ughhh: The Way Men Are Raised Affects Green Behavior. A project investigating why men are more resistant to climate initiatives than women. Focus group: ranking and discussing different “every day” climate options
• Girls Rule, Boys Drool: Gender and Environmental Action. Survey, developed in Google Forms. 78 Respondents (22 men, 56 women). Questions about using recyclable bags at the grocery store, turning off lights, using “green” light bulbs, purchasing disposable plastic water bottles vs using a reusable water bottle, biking to work. Question: Do you try to do things that are environmentally sustainable: women 89%, men 16%.
• Flipping Officer Training; Pedagogy to Andragogy. Interviews with an active police officer and the Chief of the Colorado State Patrol.
• Police Officer’s Stress and The Research That Can Help. Analysis of four textbooks for officer training and the way they frame stress and mental health.
• How Police Officers Deal with Stress. Interview with a Police Sargent and a Cadet. Focus on how stress comes up in weekly life and is covered during Academy training.
• Media Perceptions of Police Shootings. Analysis of 10 different articles on police shootings. Paying particular attention for references to “police stress” and/or the difficulty of the job. Also paying attention for mention of ways to reduce police shootings.
• Bees are Dying at Alarming Rates: Why this is Dangerous for Human Life. Examines media coverage of the bee-tastrophe in light of research (identifies 4 different proposed solutions via academic research and sees how often those solutions are mentioned in media coverage).
• It is Time to Figure Out How to Save the Bees. EXTENSIVE scientific literature review analyzing proposed solutions (12 scholarly articles). Survey (103 Facebook respondents in a beekeeping group) regarding public knowledge of the bee problem.
• Special Education Students Deserve to be Included in STEM Education. Surveying special education teachers in Greeley schools (targeted 8 teachers, got 2 responses).
• The Effects of Artificial Light on Human Health: How and Why to Avoid Light Pollution. Methods for this project are below.

Methods and Findings
A mixture of two types of primary research were conducted to support my study. A survey was shared with my peers at UNC, and an observational study was done that assessed what locations across campus used fluorescent (LED) lighting. My survey, with an experimental group of approximately 20 people will asked the following questions:

1. Do you use your phone, laptop, or any other electronic device less than an hour before you go to bed?
2. On average, how many hours of sleep have you gotten per night in the past week?
3. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being the worst, 10 being the best, how would you rate the quality of your nightly sleep?
4. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being the hardest and 10 being the easiest, how difficult is it for you to fall asleep at night?

Finally, I asked a short answer response for why would eliminating electronic devices before bedtime be easy or hard? While my sample size of 20 was lower than anticipated, there’s enough consistency in responses to draw some significant conclusions. The purpose of this survey was to quantify the relationship between blue light wavelengths and sleep patterns right here on campus.
Additionally, the observational study was done by me as I recorded the types of available lighting in all the campus locations I traveled across throughout the week. My guess was that most locations rely on non-traditional, fluorescent lights which are a form of blue light. Some areas were supplemented with natural lighting but since classes and study sessions are held all hours of the day, students are left to work under lights that only add to their headaches.

Homework

Remember that your goal this week is to annotate two research articles in your workspace.