Research Coordinator Blog

Have you been thinking about research? Do you feel overwhelmed on where to begin? Below, I outline my step-by-step guide to getting ready for research. You just need to take one little bite at a time. Before you begin conducting research, you need to complete the TCPS2 Core Certificate ( https://tcps2core.ca/ ). Click on the purple button to create an account. Then, work your way through the modules. This does take a little while to complete (up to 8 hours or so if you are brand new to research), but you can save your progress and return later. Then, you need a research idea. Your idea doesn’t need to be ground-breaking or brilliant (though if you have one of those, don’t discard it!). Your research idea will likely be something that begins with “I wonder if…” That is, you’ll come up with a question or problem and then a possible solution. For example, I wonder if using polling in class will improve test performance (or attendance, or something else). Likely, your question will be rela...

First, thanks to everyone who submitted research-related questions in the SurveyMonkey earlier this month. You brought out important questions that I am excited to answer! I have copied each question below (verbatim), followed by my answer. If you’d like a more detailed answer to any of these questions (whether it was the question that you asked or that someone else asked), please send me an email or a message on Teams.   “Why is Durham College bothering with research? Research is the job of universities. Workforce development is the job of community colleges.” Good question with a complex reply. First, research helps to improve student learning (especially SoTL research). While universities can study the same questions, we have a unique student population. I would argue that college students are probably unlike university students in learning habits and desires and university research rarely includes our learners as part of their sample. So, their conclusions cannot necessarily b...

  Although my role is Research Coordinator, not all research projects lead to a publication, much like not all scholarly publications require research. I will present to you some ideas to help you get started if you’re interested in authoring scholarly publications, including non-research publications. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is not always discussed when speaking of research at the college, because many of the other schools are more applied in their scope than IS. They might create a stronger metal, develop a bit of code, or brew a new beer. Our applied setting is primarily education: essentially, how do students learn best? Although you can plan, develop, and conduct a research study, collecting data, analysing it, and then publish those results, many new researchers feel that this is a daunting task. They feel overwhelmed and give up. A research project also takes a long time (at least 4-6 months). So my suggestion to you is that, before you undertake a fu...

Many of you already know me as I was the GAS Program Coordinator from 2015-2019. But for those of you who don’t (or may not know me well) here is a bit about me, your new IS Research Coordinator. Education: After a double BA in Psychology and French (University of Windsor), I completed my MA and PhD in Cognitive Psychology at Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). My focus was in Psycholinguistics (bilingual language representation and processing ambiguous English words), and I also earned doctoral minors in Linguistics and Quantitative Methods (aka stats). Commuting from Windsor for 7 years led to many cross-border adventures, which I will happily share, just not in this newsletter. Research: I have been publishing research since 2008 and have many types of publications under my belt, from the traditional, data-driven research articles, to “fun” pieces about teaching. I am not shy about sharing my publications, so if you’re interested, just ask and I will send you a list (comprehensive...