In How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, authors Susan Ambrose and her colleagues warn about the expert blind spot. They call it a handicap that impacts our teaching. Because of our expert blind spot, we tend to “inadvertently omit skills, steps, and information that students need in order to learn and perform effectively” (2012, p. 112). As I currently teach research skills to incoming first-year college students, my expert blind spot has become painfully obvious, so as the Spring Semester of 2015 began, I took a step back and thought about my own research process. I started to think about what I really do, rather than about what research methods books say I should do. Then, I doodled my ideas.
Dr. M’s research process, version 1
Dr. M’s research process, version 2
At first glance, I thought these two versions were just fine. However, as the course moved forward, I realized that I had omitted information, namely, I failed to distinguish between a research interest and a research topic (Booth, Colomb, and Williams, 2008), and I moved directly from observation to formulating a question without considering that research is not just about finding right or wrong answers to a question. Research is a complex and iterative process, whereby we create, evaluate, and redefine knowledge, and share it with a community.
As I work on these illustrations, I realized, once again, that research takes time. Mind you, it’s not like I was unaware of this fact, but when I look back at my development as a scholar, I have come a long way. I know I can’t churn out a paper in one sitting. I can’t even produce a short blog post in one sitting! Moreover, it became clear to me that my process doesn’t necessarily follow the pattern outlined in the research methods literature. For example, even though I assign selected chapters for Booth, Colomb, and Williams’ Craft of Research book, I don’t usually craft a research question. More often than not, I propose a thesis that I intend to prove. Therefore, I came up with a third version of the diagram. This time, I created a concept map (see Cañas & Novak, 2009) to show the relationships between the elements of the process more explicitly:
Dr. M’s Research Process, Version 3 * Adapted from Booth, Colomb, and Williams (2008) ** Adapted from Guba and Lincoln
When I compare this to what Booth, et. al propose, my thesis is akin to what they call a research topic. They define research topic as comprising the subject matter (i.e., the “thing” you’re interested in), and a claim you will try to prove. However, their terminology might be misunderstood by a novice researcher. Many of my undergrads, for example, use research topic as a synonym for what the paper is about, but fail to make a claim that can be examined and supported. In other words, novice researchers writing about the Civil War would probably say that the topic of their research paper is the Civil War. In such cases, research papers become a collection of facts and factoids, rather than a work that illuminates a facet of a larger issue.
So, what can I do to explain the research process in a more productive way? One thing I have tried is to have my students draw their own versions of the research process. I ask them “what exactly do you do when you conduct your research?” The drawings from Spring and Summer 2015 showed some interesting patterns:
- Most of my students depicted a linear process;
- not everyone gets to pick their research topic;
- most students outline their paper before writing it;
- there is no preliminary research stage. There is only research.
- revision usually happens once, and it centers on copyediting.
Going through this process of thinking about my research, and getting students to think about how they conduct their own inquiry has helped me identify areas of miscommunication with my students. However, I’m not entirely sure if it makes their understanding of research more complete. I fear that, since my illustrations seem so far removed from their lived experience in classrooms, it may be too soon for them to able to think of their research as something more complex.
We do have to start somewhere, though!
References:
- Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., & Williams, J. M. (2008). The craft of research (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Cañas, A.J, & Novak, J.D. (2009, September 28). What is a Concept Map? Retrieved September 3, 2015, from http://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/conceptmap.php
