The Vicious Cycle of Search for Research: Perspective of a Graduate Student
Asil Ali Özdoğru
Experiences of a graduate student can be a rich material not only for producing humor but also to learn about the research process. In addition to coursework in research methods and statistics, actual experiences of graduate students in doing research can be quite informative and inspiring for anyone interested in research (e.g., Probert, 2006).
As a senior graduate student in his program, I have been involved in research for many years now, starting in my early years of undergraduate education. Back in those days, I was one of the few students who enjoyed doing class projects –may be only those few went on to graduate school. It was, and still is, a joy of a discovery for me to locate publications in the library or Internet. Taking information from individual articles or books, synthesizing them, producing an intellectual product was much more fun to me than taking those dreary exams.
My first research papers were literature reviews and evaluations of existing literature. Those papers gave me an idea about the qualities of scholarly research papers like how they are similar to and different than other writings such as newspaper articles or literary pieces. Later on we started to do hands on research by collecting data from our classmates or random students we caught in the campus. Planning and implementing our own research questions, measurement scales, data collection methods, analytic and inferential strategies provided me a sense of self-determination and ownership in my work. Those class papers and projects were not something to get done but opportunities to learn more about the complexities and challenges of real world –as they were designed to be.
Years in graduate school were more research-intensive. Research ideas that I carried from my undergraduate years were merged with new areas of interest. Participating in my advisors’ ongoing projects helped me to figure out what kind of studies are needed and valued in the area of my study. We presented those initial studies in local and regional conferences, which are very valuable experiences in preparing for national conferences and learning about high quality research. Conferences and seminars were perfect places to develop my presentation skills and meet fellow researchers in my area. Forming collaborations with students and faculty from other departments and schools helped me widen my vision and skills in research.
Although I had several research projects that I was working on and I recommended other graduate students to involve in various research venues (Özdoğru, 2005), I was never definite about my major area of focus. I was always in the search of my ideal research topic that I would continue throughout my professional life, which was almost looking for a partner to marry. Whether it is my insatiable intellectual curiosity or my plain indecisiveness, I am still facing the million dollar question of what to study for my dissertation. However, it is, and will be, my relatively wide-ranging research experience that gives me self-confidence and sense of control in my search for research.
References
Özdoğru, A. A. (2005, April). Interested in educational research? How to decide what to study. The NERA Researcher, 43(2), 8.
Probert, A. (2006). Searching for an appropriate research design: A personal journey. Journal of Research Practice, 2(1), Article D3. Retrieved on April 2, 2006 from http://jrp.icaap.org/content/v2.1/probert.html
We previously studied the inclusion of humor in instructional material. Was the inclusion beneficial? Yes and no. How do you operationalize “beneficial”? We had selected passages from a psychology text by Baron’s introductory Psychology textbook. Students studied six passages, each on a different topic, three topics each with a cartoon and three without. Two forms of the instructional material allowed a true experiment. Students completed a sense-of-humor measure, a questionnaire, and a multiple-choice achievement test on the six passages. Based on the responses to the brief questionnaire, the students supported the use of cartoons. Based on the responses to the multiple-choice items, however, any impact of the humor was not obvious. There are many reasons why we would suspect that humor would be an assist in instruction. This will be presented.
