Pondering on George Veletsianos’ response to our cohort’s question, I begin to assess my predispositions and values towards research. Our views of the world certainly have an impact on how we create meaning and as I go further into this program, a key takeaway is that self-awareness and good judgment must prevail. Embarking on research is an admirable pursuit of understanding our world better.  The pursuit to expand knowledge should not supersede respect for human dignity and justice. He reinforced this value in one of his responses to ethics in research. As responsible researchers, we need to acquaint ourselves to the ethical guidelines of research and to continuously assess the potential harm that our participants may face throughout the cycle of the study.

Bias is another issue in research that we should be cognizant. Veletsianos acknowledged that we all have our proclivity to be bias to certain issues and self-awareness is crucial to control the urge to bring in our subjective views in the analysis of the results. Therefore, in avoiding bias Veletsianos’ recommended to having multiple people to analyse the data together to ensure bias is in check. Another key takeaway is to recognize my preconceived notions and keep them in check when conducting my research.

At the beginning of this course, we were asked to post on our blog what makes a good research question. As I conclude this path, I am back to reflecting on the importance of a good research question. A good research question anchors a research project.  The question dictates how the research should be conducted, hence no crystal ball can provide a definitive answer to this. Ultimately, what makes sense and will answer the research question are the key ingredients. But first, focus on developing a good research question.

Reference

Veletsianos, G (2019). Questions for George Veletsianos. [Audio]. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yzG3Sqo0wImXN0tUf9dcjXODISiSYt9gH8_gJnMC_hY/edit