Month: March 2025 (Page 1 of 2)

Reflection #4

When talking about common survey methods, the two that first come to mind with researchers would be interviews and focus groups. However, these research approaches can often fail in reaching their primary goals. When most people think about interviews, the idea of jobs interviews could be the first thought that appears in their head. Keeping this mindset throughout a research interview would most likely lead to the interviewee being more nervous and less willing to tell the complete truth, since their main focus will be finding the “right” answer, instead of finding their answer. One possible way this could be reworded in order to put the participants more at ease would be to introduce them as questionnaires instead of interviews. 

Beyond that, the researchers themselves could also influence the responses from the participants. The way the questions are phrased often has an impact on the answers given. For example, a researcher could ask a question such as “Do you believe the new law that was passed is just?”, or they could ask it as “How do you feel about the new law that was passed?”. The first way may persuade a participant to say yes, while the second way excludes any bias. Many researchers may not realize it, but the way they ask a question can cause their responses to be less accurate.  

So, after a researcher conducts an interview and gets the responses, their study is complete, right? Not quite yet. Perhaps the most important part of conducting interviews is interpreting their results afterwards. Since interviews often provide more qualitative data than quantitative data, grouping similar responses is difficult, but crucial to seeing how many people answered a question a certain way. The struggle is finding a balance between putting similar responses in the same category, while not forcing a complex answer into a certain box. Failure at either one of these could cause many viewpoints to be ignored in a given study. Despite all the difficulties that come with interviews and focus groups, when done right, they can offer a lot of insight into the experiences and struggles of people from any given commnity. 

Chapter 1 & 2 Top 5 Assignment

  1. I wonder whether it is better to conduct a structured interview or an unstructured interview. Sure, a structured interview can often resemble survey research, therefore being more useful for our studies. However, I feel like unstructured interviews could give more insight into the topic that the interviewer might not have thought about beforehand. For example, if an interviewer is asking questions in order to get a census of events that are occurring in local communities, allowing the interviewee to respond in a way that opens the door to new ideas would be a lot more useful than just getting a yes or no answer from them. 
  1. The first chapter mentions how Amy Schalet used a semi-structured interview approach to get the opinions of people from American and the Netherlands on adolescent sexuality. When asked about this technique, Amy explained that it offered an almost “friendly” atmosphere by just letting the conversation flow instead of pausing multiple times to switch the question. I personally believe that this would be the best approach for an interview, purely because of the fact that the friendly environment will make the interviewee more willing to open up more about the topic and feel safe doing so. I believe that this is a practice that should be implemented in our research. 
  1. Although conducting a semi-structured interview gives the interviewer a lot more freedom, it also brings along more challenges. Amy Schalet went on to mention that the difficulty in conducting that kind of interview, especially on a controversial topic, is keeping the interviewee just inside their comfort zone. Since certain topics can often result in major emotional responses, it is important to ensure that you do not push them over the edge. While this is easier in a structured interview, since the interviewer can easily skip a question or move on to the next topic, if necessary, semi-structured interviews can often require complete 180’s from the current discussion to prevent an emotional reaction. 
  1. It is interesting to me how increasing the number of participants in a single interview can make a difference to the results. Chapter 2 starts out by discussing how focus groups can be effective in finding a meaningful conclusion to a complex topic. The authors explain how using focus groups as a method for research can allow people to think collectively instead of individually. One person who is interviewed about a problem in their community may answer the question with a bit of bias, based on how the problem affected them and how educated they are on topic However, a group of people would be able to bounce ideas off each other and reach a collective conclusion. 
  1. Focus groups, just like semi-structured interviews, require a lot of attention and care. Audrey Kobayashi, a researcher who often works with focus groups, described how focus groups need a good facilitator to ensure the conversation flows smoothly. If only two people are actually engaged in the conversation, the facilitator needs to be able to slow the discussion down and allow for the more shy participants to get a say. If the topic being discussed can lead to different responses from different groups of people, the facilitator must be able to split the group accordingly.  

Psychology of Groups Top 5 Assignment

  1. I wonder why we all have a need to belong that needs to be fulfilled. Is it something that we have always had as humans? Is it a result of years of past human experience that makes us feel more successful when we find a group? This is most likely a question that we will not ever be able to answer, but it is interesting to think about why that is a trait that most people have, and why some people do not have this trait. 
  1. I think it is interesting how being a part of a group can change the way we see ourselves as individuals. A big part of our self-image is a result of our surroundings. We identify with certain groups that we share common interests with. This can lead us to feeling successful when our group is successful. Along with that, watching people in our group perform well often motivates us to perform better in similar situations. 
  1. Despite finding a group being very beneficial to us humans, it does not exactly result in a massive rise in performance. When we are in a group effort, we often tend to relax and perform worse individually because we know that we have support from other people as well. A group of four in a school project would theoretically work 4 times as efficiently as a person working alone, but the weaker performance of everyone in the group would actually cause them to perform slightly worse. 
  1. Along with decreased performance, the idea of group thinking is an intriguing topic. Since being a part of a group tends to change the way we see ourselves, it can often change the way we see the world. In situations where members of a group disagree with each other, one side, usually the loud majority, will convince the others that they are right in this instance. This happens because our identity within the group can compel us to believe the group’s most popular belief, due to members in a group often sharing similar ideals. 
  1. Even though these conflicts can lead to groups being less effective, there are ways to avoid these conflicts. Fulling discussing the pros and cons of certain opinions can help prevent issues such as group think and polarization. Most groups do not prepare enough for this, which is why they ultimately become less successful, despite each member mostly sharing common beliefs. 

Reflection #2

One of the main problems with data cleaning, as it is, is the connotation that the words give off. Data cleaning refers to the process of wiping away data that is different to the trend already being set up by the rest of the data. The name does not exactly give it justice for how crucial it is in the research process. It gives off the impression that data needs to be “fixed” or “altered” in order to be correct. The best way to phrase this practice would be to compare it to something more similar. Something such as “data-keeping” works better since it relates to housekeeping, which is a better description of what is actually being done during data cleaning. 

Unfortunately, the one difference between housekeeping and data cleaning is that data cleaning does not just remove “bad” data. The data cleaning process can often eliminate data that is significant because of its uniqueness. This could cause the results of a study to be less accurate to the real world. 

A possible solution for this would be to highlight the unique sets of data, instead of hiding them. This could be done by putting a spotlight on regional or even spatial differences. The researchers may not know why these differences are occurring, but that just leaves room for more research to be conducted on this topic in the future. This gives us more possibilities for future discoveries that we might not have had if the original study was “cleaned”. 

Article Annotation #2

Katie Rawson and Trevor Munoz, the authors of this article, clearly made “data cleaning” the core topic. Specifically, the downsides to data cleaning. The main concerns that were brought up were the loss of validity and the reductiveness that can be caused by data cleaning. Without the complexity of data, which is lost in data cleaning, research studies become less accurate to real life, therefore less significant to the issue at hand. In the end, the authors propose a new approach to understanding complex data. This would consist of building systems that can explore the “strange” results instead of eliminating them completely. 

This seems to be a debate that is not exactly new to research fields. I know this because the author’s purpose was not to completely get rid of data cleaning, but to change how it is done. A change in the way data cleaning is conducted was first suggested whenever the authors mentioned how harmful the current practice is. The only main alteration that is brought up is the creation of a new system that values the different and unique qualities of data. This is not a new revelation, since data cleaning has been a valuable part of research for years. However, the article still holds a significant argument, proving that data cleaning is a piece of an old system that is in dire need of an update. This is all done without entirely bashing data cleaning as a practice. 

While I may not know much about data cleaning and the arguments against it, I know this is a controversial topic, since data cleaning has long been used to improve data quality after a study is conducted. Fortunately, the way this article was written gets the point across while not attempting to take data cleaning off the list of research practices. Now, new researchers who read this article can understand the downfalls of data cleaning without ignoring its full benefits. 

Dataset Review Worksheet

This article mainly focuses on the average person’s satisfaction with life. With that being said, the sample used in the study consisted of people of random ages, races, and years of education. In the end, the main survey topics discussed were self-esteem, private regard, sexual identification, satisfaction with life, and sex role inventory. Each topic received an average of “Agrees” and “Strongly Agrees”, showing that most of the participants of the study were living fulfilling lives. Even the graphs represent this trend well by showing a Bell curve. However, that does not mean that the study was not without its faults. 

It is true that the statistics in the article were rather precise, with the calculated means and standard deviations all being shown to the 4th decimal place. Despite this, the study does not exactly give the reader anything to think or reflect on. There is no major importance to this study. Since it is not being compared to past studies or studies from different countries, there is not much to take in at the end, other than most people in this country are satisfied with their lives. Along with that, the majority of the participants in this study were white college graduates in their 20s, which somewhat skews the results. The outlook on life of a white person in their 20’s is going to differ from an African American in their 50’s, or a white person who did not go to college. 

Lined up next to other research studies I have encountered in the past, it looks pretty similar, only simpler. The precision and structure of the data match many other studies on similar topics. Although, it was not exactly what I had expected, based on prior research. In the past few years, I have been led to believe that the self-esteem of the average person in the US has been slowly declining. While these two events could still be true, it makes me wonder what the self-esteem of the average person was in the past. Regardless of these conflicts, this study will still be useful in the future for comparing outlooks on life from different years. 

Article Annotation #1

If you asked the average person 10 years ago what they thought about artificial intelligence, most people would either immediately think about the robots from the Terminator or not understand what artificial intelligence actually is. By definition, artificial intelligence is the capacity of a computer program to execute functions that are normally related to human intelligence. In recent years, artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT have become very popular as programmers are racing to improve the effectiveness of AI. This has also sparked a lot of debate about when and where AI should be properly used, like in school, for example. Luckily, many researchers have began to look into issues revolving around AI. An article titled “ChatGPT Goes to College” does a great job at showing just how far along we are on the path tp full AI integration. 

This study on ChatGPT was originally conducted in order to understand students’ views on artificial intelligence and its usefulness. The team created a survey that asked various questions such as how often they use ChatGPT in a school setting. Over 700 college students were asked these questions. In the end, the results showed that the introduction of ChatGPT did not directly cause the number of “cheaters” to increase, it merely allowed students who already had no problem with cheating to get assignments done in a crunch. This clearly shows that AI is not at the point where it is a concern for all students, as 54% of the students interviewed claimed that they have not yet used ChatGPT for school assignments. 

One of my first thoughts on the article was that it did a great job at making sure the results were not up for interpretation. The questions asked made sure to include several factors for the study, such as usage, reasoning, and effectiveness of usage. While this article did not end the debate on AI usage in school, it showed that there is still time to guide students on using artificial intelligence programs such as ChatGPT. The only problem with this study is that it was not widespread enough to show how true those results are for the rest of the country. 

The end of the study did catch me off guard at first. I have not done much research in regard to artificial intelligence in school, but even back in my senior year of high school, I began hearing several of my classmates talk about using AI to complete their assignments. These were also students who would not normally cheat in class. I would have expected the number of people who are comfortable with cheating to rise after ChatGPT. Now, these results may not be totally accurate compared to the rest of America, since the study had a few limitations to it, but I believe the study’s future implications are more important. We are at a time now when AI is still new, and not all students are using it in their everyday lives. This is the perfect opportunity for teachers to educate students on proper usage of artificial intelligence before it is too late. 

Works Cited 

Cavazos, Jenel T., et al. “ChatGPT Goes to College: Exploring Student Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom.” Teaching of Psychology, vol. 1, 7 Aug. 2024, www.researchgate.net/publication/382936523_ChatGPT_Goes_to_College_Exploring_Student_Perspectives_on_Artificial_Intelligence_in_the_Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283241268829

Chapter 11 Top 5 Assignment

  1. It is interesting to think that making research a “solo journey” can drastically impact the results of the study. Conducting a study alone is not uncommon, but when it comes to multi-layered issues, it turns out working with a team can actually benefit the way in which the research is done. 
  1. I believe the effects of ethnic diversity on community connections could go both ways. A similar ethnic population could lead to the people feeling like they all have something in common. On the other hand, people from different backgrounds could get together and begin to form bonds, allowing for greater overall connections instead of just connections between a majority. 
  1. The author mentioned that Marrow chose to highlight White Americans, African Americans, Indian immigrants, and Mexican immigrants in his study. I wonder why other groups were not given this same “importance”. What about Asian immigrants, or immigrants from Eastern Europe? 
  1. Problem-solving skills are always going to be a big part of conducting research. Learning to look for and fix minor errors will help get the most valid data. While it may be difficult sometimes to tell if your data is truly valid, using multiple different methods from the textbook will help clarify that. 
  1. It is interesting how people from different fields of study view the world in different ways. Biologists might look at certain scientific concepts differently than chemists, and chemists might have different views from physicists or mathematicians. But at the end of the way, each of their points of view is considered equally right. 

Reflection #1

Conducting research, whether in the lab or out in the field, is not something that you can just dive right into. The complexity of experiments and all their variables is one factor that makes preparation a necessity in research studies. Add in ethics and the rules, and it makes sense how not just anybody could become a researcher. Many people starting off have no idea what criteria should be met. Thankfully many researchers have made different acronyms or memorable phrases to help ensure new researchers know what to look for in their early plans. One of them being EMRN: Engagement, Mechanics, Reasoning, and Novelty. 

Novelty, in this context, means coming up with an authentic plan that looks for deeper meanings in events. A great research study must come from an idea that is unique and significant to the subject matter. Conducting an experiment based on old ideas or unpopular ideas will not give people any reason to look at the results. This is most likely why many researchers would prefer to conduct fieldwork over lab experiments. Discoveries made on human patterns or interactions cannot always be found in a laboratory. Going out and talking to people is the best way to conduct a groundbreaking study. 

For the Mechanics part of the EMRN criteria, a researcher must make sure their plan is understandable and without fault. However, these “faults” can be from many different causes. For example, one of the biggest changes to research in the 21st century is implementing rules for ethics.  Which is good for not only the participants of research studies, but the researchers as well, since mistreating volunteers in a study could lead to a shift in the results. But what about the other people who are a part of the study, such as the testers? They are not mentioned a lot, but what if they did not have ethics protection? Those same errors from the participants could still happen with the testers. This is why researchers need to be thorough in looking for “faults” in their studies, because they could easily come from an unsuspected source. 

Doing research for the first time is not easy. There will be challenges the person must overcome. But there are always resources to help early researchers. I know this from personal experience, I am soon to be conducting research for the first time too. Luckily, I know exactly where to go if I get lost. 

Henrietta Lacks Top 5 Assignment

  • It is interesting how many people would disagree on whether or not the doctors were right to take samples from Henrietta Lack’s cancer cells without her permission. On one hand, the samples they took did allow them to further their cancer research, but on the other, they wrongfully took these samples from a dying woman who did not give them permission to do so. It is a debate between whether it is better to fulfill the last wishes of a dying person or fulfill the wishes of the living. It is a topic that I believe will never fully be agreed upon. 
  • What living through events such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 Pandemic has taught me is that resolutions to conflicts often come too late. For example, throughout the 1800’s, Native American tribes were forced to endure constant relocations and violent altercations from the American government. These people were separated from their homes and their families just because they did not fit in with the rest of the American population. A century later, most of these Natives are living in poverty-stricken reserves, unable to get themselves out. By that time, the US government had begun to reflect on how they treated the Native Americans in the past and attempted to bring the tribes back together, preserve their religions, and give them more control over their lives. But at this point, the damage was already done, the Native Americans could not return to the lives they had decades ago because of how much the American government had torn apart their culture. With the Black Lives Matter movement, it started when George Floyd was killed by the police officer Derek Chauvin. But this was not Chauvin’s only wrongful kill. He had actually received almost 20 complaints about the way he handled conflict as a police officer. It took him killing a person for people to finally realize that he should not be a cop. While he was later sentenced to 21 years in prison, the damage was already done, this one action ignited the whole country and nearly lead to the government defunding the police. 
  • The problem with society nowadays is that many people are so quick to highlight negativity and ignore the positive side. Several scientists who found out about what happened to Henrietta wanted to try and slow down or entirely eliminate research done with HeLa. However, Henrietta’s own relatives did not even think that this was the best route to take. Many of them, such as her grandson Alfred Lacks Carter, believed that the best approach would be to at least acknowledge the fact that none of this development in cancer treatment would have been possible without Henrietta Lacks. Alfred knew that despite the doctors being in the wrong for using Henrietta’s cells without her consent, what they did with those samples ultimately benefited tons of people.  
  • One question I have is how will the new policies on taking samples from people for research change the progression of medical advancements? If these rules did not exist beforehand, then it is safe to say that Henrietta Lacks was not the only case of ignoring consent. In fact, many of the medical advancements made in the mid 20th century could have been the result of this same issue. So, if we start enforcing a new policy on conducting research with proper consent, could this slow down future medical discoveries or is Henrietta’s case not as common as one might think? 
  • Many people believe that racism is a thing that will exist until the end of time. While in the past, racial prejudice majorly impacted the lives of minorities in the US, it is now less of a common problem. Despite that, the hard truth is that racism is still prevalent in America. It is still embedded in many professions and lines of work today. For example, racial prejudice from the police is still a massive problem in this country. Is it as bad as it was in the 1950’s? No, but it is still seen often. From George Floyd to Sonia Massey, the public is constantly being reminded of racism in the police force. The question is how can we stop this? In the case of Henrietta Lacks, how can we ensure that doctors will not try to bend the rules for someone simply because of the color of their skin? 
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