Your Research Coordinator- Lynne Kennette

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 or recent- you choose!) I can also send you any of my published articles that may interest you.

Personal: I am originally from Lakeshore (near Windsor, Ontario) and currently live in Kawartha Lakes. My first language is French, though I learned English in grade 3 and consider myself to have native-like proficiency in English. I have been married for 14 years and we have 2 kids (6-year-old Adam and 1 year-old Emelia, so I am just returning from my maternity leave). We also have 2 kittens.

My new role as Research Coordinator: Dave Smith was IS’s first ever Research Coordinator and I think he did an excellent job bringing attention to the role and the possibility of conducting research in IS. I would like to build on what Dave has accomplished by supporting IS faculty in their desire to pursue research. Over the course of this semester, I will be sharing some research/publication tips and strategies with you, and also asking for your feedback about what you’d like me to work on to support you in research.

If you have any suggestions for things you’d like to see from me, please reach out to me via email.

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Developing a Research Question - Part 1: Generate Your Own Research Question from Scratch

Today, I’d like to provide some guidance about research questions. This will be a two-part feature. Part 1 will include a description of research questions and guidance to help you develop your own. For Pat 2 (in 2 weeks), I will focus on how to use other sources as inspirations for your research questions. A research question is used to clarify the scope of your research project. It is a narrower version of the topic that you’re interested in studying. A good research question should be specific, include the variables you are interested in studying, and be testable in a finite amount of time. Your variables should also be operationally defined. It’s not enough to say “children” for example; you should specify “5-8-year-olds”. Similarly “do better” is not a good way to operationalize student success because it’s not easy to measure; instead, phrase it as “earn higher scores on Test 3” because that is how you will measure whether they have done better. Although specific, “When w...

What is Secondary Use Research? (Part 1 of 2)

In previous issues, I have addressed the forms required for secondary use of data as well as how, in some cases, participants’ consent may not be required for secondary use projects. This week, I will define what a secondary use research project really is (to be continued in the next issue). In future articles, I will detail how to complete the secondary use REB form, section by section. So, what differentiates a secondary use research project from a traditional research project? The short answer is: when the data were collected. If you are proposing to collect data from participants during your study, then you’re not engaged in a research project that would fall under secondary use. If the data have already been collected, and you simply plan to use those previously-collected data in order to answer your research question, then you’d fall in the secondary use category. Essentially, a project that falls under secondary use involves harnessing past data for new research. Where do ...

Developing a Research Question; Part 2: Finding Inspiration Elsewhere

Before we begin, a reminder that a research question is a specific, testable question that clearly identifies the variables of interest. It identifies the scope and goal of your research project. Last time, we looked at how to develop a research question from scratch. This time, I will outline some other places you can find inspiration for a research question. Your favourite journal article. Do you have a favourite journal article? Oh. It’s just me then? Okay, well…if you have ever read a journal article that you really liked, that’s a good place to start! Specifically, focus your reading on their discussion section for ideas. Most papers identify shortcomings of their research (e.g., “We couldn’t address this possible confounding variable, so we can’t provide a strong conclusion.”), gaps in the literature which still exist (e.g., “Although we showed that …it is still not clear whether….”), and/or directions for future research (“Building on this research, future studies should e...

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