Research Reflection

The following Reflection is for Group A to post to. Those in Groups B and C are eligible to comment to Group A’s Reflections- see the bottom of this post for the Commenters’ instructions.  For more on the guidelines to receiving Extra Credit for participation, click here.

Background Information

Think back to the lecture on research design. During that class, we conducted a mock experiment. We tried to see how different genres of music affected memory recall. Half the class read and tried to memorize a story while listening to Mozart and the half to Eminem. Music choice was manipulated and so that became the independent variable and since we were exploring its effect upon memory; memory was our dependent variable. We hypothesized that students would have better recall under the Mozart condition, but we were wrong. Somewhat surprisingly, the students performed slightly better on the memory task under the Eminem condition. We then identified all of the confounding variables that helped to explain this curious finding: only calling on students who raised their hand for answers, students having more exposure to Eminem than Mozart (sad but true), etc. So, we created an experiment, tested it out, matched our findings up against our hypotheses and created some conclusions about what happened and how the experiment could be improved. That’s how research works. The only step we missed was communicating our findings with the world. Guess what? Now you can think about a research experiment and communicate your thoughts and ideas with the rest of the class.

Let’s get started!

Instructions for Reflection (Group A)

In this Reflection, we’d like you to propose a research design exploring a question of personal interest. In a sense, this is a thought experiment. You won’t be actually carrying out this experiment. The purpose of this exercise is to get you thinking like a researcher and see what kinds of cool and exciting stuff you can come up with. Be sure to review your course readings, class notes, and Connect resources as needed to help you develop your Reflection post.

Please answer the following questions in your post:

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?
• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

Instructions for Commenters (Groups B & C)

• What would be your hypothesis of the study’s outcome?
• What suggestions do you have for the researcher on how to improve or adjust the proposed study?
• Are there any drawbacks or potential harmful impacts of this research design (or results?)
• What would be the NEXT STEP after this hypothetical research study were conducted and presented to the public? Can you propose a replication with a good twist? That’s often how research works and how the field is able to advance. Maybe you can think up a great Follow Up study!