{"id":2657,"date":"2024-10-10T16:27:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T20:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/?p=2657"},"modified":"2024-09-07T22:34:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T02:34:08","slug":"2-october-selecting-a-research-topic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/2024\/10\/10\/2-october-selecting-a-research-topic\/","title":{"rendered":"Selecting a Research Topic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The first step in any research project is to decide what the topic of your research will be. There are a number of ways to do this. Perhaps you\u2019ve encountered a problem or question in your everyday teaching. If so, then you have your topic! If not, then here are a few place you can find some inspiration. Review articles<\/strong> are great sources to get you started with because they synthesize research to date, analyze key empirical studies, identify gaps in knowledge, and suggest possible directions for future research<\/strong>. These directions for future research are where you\u2019ll likely find your next research topic. Similarly, in any article, the discussion section typically identifies gaps or questions remaining, so that\u2019s another great place to look. You can also look at a recently-published research article<\/strong> that you find interesting and replicate it using Canadian college students (many of these are actually reported in mainstream news, but they don\u2019t always get the science right, so be sure to go read the original scholarly article). It may also be possible for you to hang a research question on some data you already have<\/strong> (e.g., from a previous semester). For more ideas, you can also refer to some of my past blogs for additional considerations (Feb 2022a<\/a>, Feb 2022b<\/a>, Nov 2022<\/a>, May 2023<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you have your general research topic or idea, you\u2019ll want to start formulating a more specific research question. If you haven\u2019t already (as part of the previous step), you\u2019ll want to do a thorough search of the literature<\/a> to gather more specific ideas: look for themes, common problems or gaps identified in the papers you read (including why it is important to fill that gap), and where there is a need for more research). You should focus on publications from the last 3-5 years(ish) and make sure to note and read key papers in this space (they\u2019ll likely be the ones that are cited by multiple papers early in the introduction). While reading these, also make note of interesting study designs, surveys or methodologies used, and even which stats they used for the data as this information can help you in future steps. The library online search or Google Scholar (or if you\u2019re looking for something a little different, try ResearchRabbit<\/a>) can likely get you what you need, but if not, then Nathalie Zhou<\/a> is the librarian for LS and can help you find what you\u2019re looking for. If an article isn\u2019t available online, try looking up the authors on ResearchGate or email authors directly requesting a copy. You should avoid using Sci Hub and similar websites to get around paywalls. You can also ask your favourite Generative AI (e.g., Copilot) to suggest some research ideas\/topics for you. When I was a student, I remember hating essays where I had to choose a topic because it seemed to infinite with possibilities that I found it overwhelming. Similarly, if you are finding the endless possibilities of research topics to be overwhelming, tell AI about yourself (what you teach, where you work, etc), and your SoTL interests, and let it suggest some topics for you to go read about. But do keep in mind that AI is biased in many ways, so don\u2019t blindly follow its suggestions, but it can serve as a good starting point!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you read journal articles start writing small summaries of the important articles you\u2019ve come across of what has already been done- those will likely form the basis of your rationale for doing your research and can help your fine-tune your research question (this is another place where AI can be leveraged to increase your productivity- give it an article and ask it to summarize it for you and then all you have to do is read its summary to ensure it matches with what you read). For example, you might find that three things have already been done, but not this fourth thing that is of interest to you; or perhaps several researchers have all identify a particular gap\/future direction\/need for research in this area. Keep track of your observations\/ideas in a Word document or use a citation manager tool<\/strong> (theseare downloadable and\/or online tools that create, store, and share citations for resources used in your research. Most of these tools can be added\/enabled in Word and will automatically populate your References and format your in-text citations for you (you select them from the list you\u2019ve added to your citation manager). A popular paid one is EndNote. Durham College does not subscribe to a paid citation manager software, so consider using a free one like Zotero<\/a> (online resources for Zotero<\/a> are available through the library) Next month, we\u2019ll fine-tune your research question into a specific and measurable research question for you to investigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first step in any research project is to decide what the topic of your research will be. There are a number of ways to do this. Perhaps you\u2019ve encountered a problem or question in your everyday teaching. If so, then you have your topic! If not, then here are a few place you can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2657"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2689,"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions\/2689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drlynnekennette.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}