Assignment

Please respond to these 2 colleagues' postings.

In your responses, be sure to do the following:

• Address the content of each colleague's analysis and evaluation of the topic, as well as the integration of relevant resources.
• Address the question(s) posed by each colleague for further Discussion.
• Analyze the relationship between each colleague's posting to other colleagues' postings or to other course materials and concepts, where appropriate and relevant.
• Include proper APA citations.

Colleagues' postings1:

What new learning about the research process has most surprised you?

The research process as a whole was very informative. I had a little bit of knowledge about how to conduct research coming into the class. I would say the various types of mixed methods. When I started looking at the assignment for Week 7, I certainly didn't think that there would be more than one way to look at the data and apply the mixed method. The one mixed method approach that I could be used the most would be the convergent parallel method. When researchers hear of the mixed method, the convergent method is typically the first though. The assumption (Creswell, 2014) that you have to the compare the two studies and generate information about those two studies are quite common when looking at the mixed method. In the minimum approach, that is correct, but there is also the need to explain how the information relates to each other.

What impression or attribute about the research process is different than you imagined it to be before taking this course?

The impression that made the most impact to me was the clarification of how qualitative and quantitative could be viewed as two different methods, but also be used to generate another method, mixed-method. It amazes me that the two opposites of the studies can be considered into one study. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), of 647 studies conducted from 1994 and 2004, only 119 were the mixed method. One of the driving factors for this number was that the researchers felt that qualitative and quantitative research was not enough to answer their research question.

Where are opportunities for improvement to focus on as you continue taking courses in research methods and work toward your doctoral study?

The obvious answer here for me is the continuation of the usage. I want to be able to feel comfortable in using the methods and being able to apply them when necessary. I believe that I will need to use reference material, but the premise of how to use the information is nice to start with and not have to reference back for all of the steps. Sean Kelly wrote "A good research question is relatively narrow. Mine was not a "major finding." It was not going to win me a Nobel Prize. However, it was important. It produced an article in a journal and helped me to get my first academic job. It did not answer all the questions about how divided government impacted American national governance, but it took on a small part of the debate, which has raged ever since." I think that some new researchers want to try and solve the world's problem. While the idea of solving all the issues would be a great idea, it is not realistic, and a little part of the research can help just as much as the others.

What new understanding do you have about the relationship between research in information technology and social change? How do you see yourself as a social change agent in the IT field differently than you did at the beginning of the course?

I see that I can help on the research front. I was questioning myself when I first started this program. I was worried that I did not have enough coding and database skills that could contribute to the IT field. I now know that I will be able to give back to the industry with my research. Along with contributing to the research, I will be able to conduct research that helps areas and people that may not have had the means of getting the help or focus otherwise. I know that I can identify a research problem and use research to find the how and why.

References

Kelly, S. (2017, June 22). The Hardest Part of Doing Research: Formulating a Research Question.

Creswell, J. (n.d.). Research Design Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches.

Colleagues' postings2:

Richard Marinos

• What new learning about the research process has most surprised you?

o Writing synthesis was the one skill I struggled with when it was first introduced. But the previous three weeks kind of forced my hand. Writing the different research proposals about the same IT problem forced me to synthesize my sources (Carter, n.d.), especially when it came to the mixed methods proposal.

• What impression or attribute about the research process is different than you imagined it to be prior to taking this course?

o How useful other dissertations can be, even if they are only tangentially related to my topic of choice. These source often gave me ideas for how to reword my searches as I looked for additional sources.

• Where are opportunities for improvement to focus on as you continue taking courses in research methods and work toward your doctoral study?

o I need to build into my week time to just read. I thought it would be a natural byproduct of researching, but it's not. It really is a separate phase of the overall process. So I try to read on Monday and Thursday. I just pull whatever is related and read the abstracts, then the introduction, and dig further from there if it is warranted.

• What new understanding do you have about the relationship between research in information technology and social change? How do you see yourself as a social change agent in the IT field differently than you did at the beginning of the course?

o This class has forced me to focus on my practitioner-scholar attributes. Every week we had to address specific questions from our class mates. This in turn required me to investigate their topic and invest myself in the process so that I could make a worthy contribution. Not one that simply got me a grade, but one that the class mate would feel was a waste of their time when they read it. I wanted them to see my effort was in earnest.

• Be sure to include at least two questions that will elicit comments and suggestions from your colleagues.

o Class, what is the single biggest waste of time that a doctoral student like ourselves fall victim to?

o What IT databases for research are out there that we haven't covered? I have looked for free dissertation databases and even torrents. Any ideas?

References

Carter, C. (n.d.). Introduction to syntheses.