On July 29th, 2020, George Veletsianos hosted an online discussion for academic research related questions. Although I was not able to attend, I was fortunate to be able to listen to the session as it was recorded on BlueJeans. George Veletsianos is a Professor in the School of Education and Technology at Royal Roads University. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology and the Commonwealth of Learning Chair in Flexible Learning (Veletsianos, n.d.).

What I found interesting (forgive the intentional pun) was the recurring theme of ‘interest’. Since interest was part of the mnemonic F.I.N.E.R. for what makes a good research question, I am not completely surprised by it’s importance in the discussions during this session. 

Interest came up at least four times during this 1 hour session in four separate questions:

Interest first came up when George (2020) talked about the process for collecting data and structuring your research. Your interest as a researcher will guide the creation of the research question as well as the type of research. For example if you wanted to know the experiences of others or the explanation of a phenomenon, this may lead to more qualitative research and using focus groups, case studies, open questions, and interviews are good ways to achieve this. A different interest may lead to a more quantitative research study with very different data collection methods. 

Interest was discussed again when George was asked a question about the best chance for success with getting funding. George (2020) explained that it was important to align your  interests and goals with the interests and motivations of the funding agency. He explained failure in properly explaining how your interests connect with the funding agency or a lack of matching interests may lead to the funding proposal being denied. George continues by saying that a research study is more likely to continue to completion if the researcher is highly interested in the topic of study.

Third, in a question regarding whether a particular research study be performed in a local context or expanded internationally, George (2020) answered that it greatly depended on the researcher’s interest.  

Lastly, George (2020) discussed that interest was a way to filter out what research articles and books you decide to make note of when you are doing general research on a topic.  Whatever academic sources you come across you do find interesting, find a program like EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, or just keep a paper journal, and make sure you make note of  the title, year, publisher, and what it was you liked about it. 

It turns out that interest is key for not only initiating and driving the research to completion, but also for getting funding, formulating the research question, methods, and in interpreting the results.

References:

Veletsianos, G. (2020, July, 29). George’s Meeting.  https://bluejeans.com/playback/s/PES97xtVyEHk1N21CMu2Nf6cWuxkum7cyWE7yZV9PPdarszJA4QnOQtZNBqC2oid

Veletsianos, G. (n.d.). About George Veletsianos. Retrieved Aug 13, 2020, from https://www.veletsianos.com/about-2/

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