My final takeaways from this course
Three Things I know for certain about outdoor recreation research:
The Importance of Ethics and Protecting the Confidentiality of Participants
From this course, I learned about the importance of ethics and being an ethical researcher. Ethical researchers might not get many rewards and little praise, but that is better than the long list of consequences an unethical researcher can face when caught (Neuman, 2018). The best preparation for ethical behaviour is to internalize a sensitivity to ethical concerns, to adopt a serious professional role, and to interact regularly with other researchers. Moveover, the scientific community demands ethical behaviour without exceptionsâ (Neuman, 2018). The ethics tutorial by TCPS-2 also taught me a lot about ethics, such as the level of confidentiality needed with participants of many age-ranges, mostly children. The textbook explains what scientific misconduct is, and two forms of it, research fraud and plagiarism. I had heard of plagiarism before, from my other University classes and that blurb in all the syllabuses, but also from an Academic Integrity Matters (AIM) course I did last year.
Invisible Backpacks in Research
Every person has an invisible backpack that affects their life. A personâs invisible backpack can affect, not only other peopleâs opinions and views of them, but also their own ideals, ideas, and opinions about the world around them, including any research they partake in (Hooykaas, 2022).
My invisible backpack affects and impacts my views and opinions on the things around me.
My Invisible Backpack Photo Credit: Drew Miller, made on Canva
Bad Science: How to spot it
Another thing I learned from this class was Bad Science and how to spot it.
Photo Credits: Hooykaas, 2022
The 12 tips to spotting bad science are:
Sensationalized Headlines
Misinterpreted Results
Conflict of Interests
Correlation & Causation
Speculative Language
Sample Size Too Small
Unrepresentative Samples
No Control Group Used
No Blind Testing Used
âCherry-pickedâ Results
Unreplicable Results
Journals & Citations
I used these tips for spotting bad articles when writing my final paper for a different class this semester. I searched for keywords and read the abstracts for each one that came up, along with also avoiding the ones with âsensationalized headlines [and titles].â
Three Things Iâm still confused about are:
How I will use this knowledge I have gained from this class in my future, as right now I am not planning on going into a career in the research field; Iâm leaning more towards the outdoor education field.
Some of the research-related terms and phrases. I have learned many terms from this course, through the textbook and the slides. An example of a phrase Iâm confused with is âAxial Codingâ, which from the textbook is defined as âa second coding of qualitative data after open coding. The researcher organizes the codes, develops linkages among them, and discovers key analytic categoriesâ (Neuman, 2018). Another phrase is âAlternative Hypothesisâ, and when I looked up the definition in the textbook, I didnât know one of the words, ânull hypothesisâ, that was part of the definition, so I had to learn what that term meant to figure out what my original confusing term meant. This occurred many times throughout the assigned textbook readings for me.
How to use Tumblr. Before this class, I had never used Tumblr or any blogging platform. I have learned how to post, and repost and reply to otherâs posts. One thing that still confuses me about Tumblr is how sometimes when I click on someoneâs post or repost to read it, it pops up on the side in a smaller area; Iâm not sure why, but it only happens randomly, so it is not too bad.
Three things I know for certain about me as an outdoor recreation researcher:
I prefer to analyze and use qualitative research over quantitative when researching. I donât mind analyzing numbers and more concrete data, but qualitative data, with its information in words, pictures, sounds, visual images or objects (Neuman, 2018) is more my style.
I currently plan to not go into a career in the research field, more aiming for the outdoor education field. But I have learned that if I am interested in and like the topic Iâm researching, whether outdoor-related or not, I will be more excited and passionate about it. For example, when I was writing the script for my podcast group, I was much more excited about writing the sections about ghost towns and shipwrecks over the rest of it.
Three areas I need to spend time developing/learning in order to feel more confident in my skills:
Taking time and having more practice with writing research/survey questions, whether the questions are quantitative or qualitative. I donât have much practice writing either type of questions, or really any survey research questions before this class.
Organizing my research notes better. I need to spend some time improving my note collecting method, which right now is to put everything in one doc, under general headings and with a certain note to remember which one of my references it came from. This works for some assignments and projects, but for others, that have a lot of research and notes, it is a little confusing.
More confident in myself, in my researching skills and in general. Iâm not the most confident person, with my skills and knowledge, or sharing them with others. I have gained some confidence over the last year and a half, as I am still often very quiet, but now I will sometimes offer my opinions and thoughts, more than just when I have to, like after being called on in class.
References:
Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 2 Theory and Social Research. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 21 - 40). essay, Pearson.
Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 4 Reviewing the Scholarly Literature and Planning a Study. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 62 - 79). essay, Pearson.
Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 5 Designing a Study. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 79 â 102). essay, Pearson.
Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 14 Nonreactive Qualitative Research. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 305 - 327). essay, Pearson.
Hey Drew,
Definitely felt the same way in common with your confusing points. In the first hand, using Tumblr is a whole new thing, despite having former experience with social platforms like Facebook or Instagram, but those were significanlty different than Tumblr which is primarily for blogging. I have little experience and practice for posting blogs. It took me some time to discover its features and barely got to manage the basics. It will bug me if any thing occurs and I had to look up for a post or a comment to either reply to or share for example. Also for Coding of data, this one sub-topic within the lesson contains a lot of complex, abstract concepts and terminology. Not to mention those strange terms you just listed above, none seem to be straight-forward in term of understanding!
I strongly feel the same for preference of research method to be qualitative rather than quantititative. It is more of a common sense way to do researches, your questions asked often can be easily understood by participants or at least easier by interpretation. An up side is that data can be collected via interview, questionnaire, and surveys, many times these do not neccessarily contain heavy numbers, statistics or diagrams, where cumbersomeness is huge.
After all, great reflection over the course content, keep it going!
Ryan
Hey Drew,Â
I also learned a lot about ethics and the protection of participants from this course, which I think is super useful in any field of work and not just research! I agree with you that knowing how to spot bad science is something that is important and itâs something that Iâm still working on.Â
You know what, this is the first time I realized how to âreblogâ a post. This entire course iâve been commenting and thinking that was the correct thing to do, so I am with you! Tumblr is so confusing...
Iâm so glad to hear that youâre gaining confidence in your ability to share your skills and knowledge. Personally, youâre someone I would go to for help in this program. You seem to know everything and help in a very nice and understanding way!Â
I also like to use qualitative over quantitative, numbers just donât work for me.Â
You have a good understanding of who you are as a person, as well as an OUTD rec researcher! Way to be.Â
Annie















