Blog Prompt 9/10 (OUTD-2511): Final Blog
Three things I know for certain about outdoor recreation research:
Ethics: Ethics are important in research because they can help to protect the researcher, the research, and the volunteers/test subjects/interviewees. Ethics can include concerns or conflicts that may arise and ethics helps “to define what is or is not legitimate to do, or what ‘moral’ research procedures involve (Neuman, 2017). Ethics must be considered throughout the entire research process and it is really important to never overlook ethics. In this course, we were taught the extreme importance of ethics, so it is cemented in my brain.
Qualitative and Quantitative research: It was fairly easy to remember quantitative and qualitative research because I learned it in high school during chemistry. I only had to learn out to apply it outside of the science lab. Besides the difference between the two are easy to remember: qualitative data is "information in the form of words, pictures, sounds, visual images, or objects," and quantitative data is "information in the form of numbers," (Neuman, 2017). Qualities vs. quantities.
Invisible Backpacks: An invisible backpack I know the concept of invisible backpacks for sure because I also learned about it in another OPRT course with Craig Paiement. For his course we had to create a 'power flower' which included what privileges we had. The inner petals were the advantages/privileges according to social norms, and the outer petals are your results. The green checks show the privileges you have. This is my power flower:
Three things I am still confused by:
How is this new knowledge significant to my future career?
Throughout this course I have been trying to find things that I can apply to my future career. This has been difficult because I am not going into a career in research. However I may not be able to apply the majority of what I have learned in this course, I think I can still apply the concepts of ethics and invisible backpacks. This is due to the fact that these two things should be taken into consideration in every workplace and in life in general. Every person has their own unique story and they each carry different advantages or disadvantages that has effected their lives. Regardless of an individual's invisible backpack, everyone should be treated with equity.
How do I write a research proposal?
I have no idea how a research proposal is supposed to be formatted. I have tried to look at examples of research proposals made by Lakehead University students, and I have searched the web to try and find the correct formatting, but they are all different. Even for the research proposal for our podcast project our group was just guessing the formatting because we couldn't find a template and we were never taught how to create a research proposal.
All of the new terms.
There are so many terms in the textbook that it is really difficult to remember them all and their meanings. I counted the glossary of the textbook and there are 363 terms and definitions in it (Neuman, 2017). Only in chapter 1 of the textbook there are 32 terms to remember (Neuman, 2017). Due to the fact that there are so many different new terms it is hard to accurately remember most of them.
Things I know for certain about me as an outdoor recreation researcher:
I would not make a good outdoor recreation researcher. I am constantly getting new hobbies and finding new interests that it would be extremely difficult for me to fully complete a research project. It would be very hard for me to stay invested in my research because I can get bored fairly easily, I get easily distracted, and once I feel that I have learned enough of something, I move on to a new challenge.
This is a quote that I often look at:
“None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an afterthought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like a hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.” - Anthony Hopkins (n.d.)
I don't want to be an outdoor recreation researcher. I haven’t had the resources or the opportunities to experience many outdoor activities or new places besides hunting and camping during my lifetime, so I want to spend my time experiencing things before anything else. I feel that I would not be a good researcher because I haven’t even experienced much of life. Also, I feel that I should focus more on my life and the happiness and new experiences I can get instead of dedicating a large portion of my time to a research project that likely won't matter. I know it sounds rude, but there are so many research papers out there already that it is very hard to think of anything new to research, and a lot of those papers don’t even get read or lead to anything significant. I would rather spend my time out in the field making a difference instead of behind a computer analyzing research that likely won't lead to anything important.
Three areas I need to spend time developing/learning in order to feel more confident in my skills:
Staying Focused: I have a really hard time staying focused on a task for a long period of time. Research projects are especially difficult for me to do because of how long they can take. The parts of research that are in the field or with people I can become very focused and interested in, but the written portions are extremely hard for me to focus on. I'm honestly not too sure how I can improve on this because I have been trying to improve on it for years and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.
Staying Interested in the Research: I can have a very strong passion for something, but that feeling can quickly fizzle out. I struggle with staying interested in something, such as a research project, for the entire duration of time. I get to a certain point where I think I know a lot about the topic and I lose interest because my curiosity has been fulfilled.
Staying motivated to complete the research: Once I lose focus and become uninterested, it is extremely hard for me to stay motivated to complete a task. This can be difficult for completely large projects that require a lot of time because as mentioned before I easily lose focus and can quickly become uninterested. I often have to force myself to complete something that I have no motivation to do, but this can lead to a final product that may not be as good as it should be.
A perfect example of when I have experienced all three of these areas I struggle in is while writing this blog. This blog required sitting at a computer for a long period of time, it required me to write about things I am not interested in writing about, and this led to me having an extremely difficult time staying motivated to write it.
References
Neuman, W. & Robson, K. (2017). Basics of social research (4th edition). Pearson
Quozio. (n.d.). None of us are getting out of here alive . . . Quozio. Retrieved 2022, from https://quozio.com/quote/t2wnxn44v9f4/1133/none-of-us-are-getting-out-of-here-alive-so-please-stop
















