CHAPTER 6-PROGRESS (NOT PERFECTION)
09-25-2023
THE "ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM" FOR RESEARCH
Regarding research, society expects people not to make any mistakes in their analytical investigations. They hope researchers do not make any mistakes on a limited timeline. For example, let us travel back to March 2020. Everyone worldwide learned that all social activities and events would not happen after the COVID-19 pandemic took over. With the understandable uncertainty from everyday citizens, scientists had to race against the clock to get accurate details available to the public before dealing with misinformation from the internet. The problem is that researchers will not have all the answers the public wants. Also, we must account for some of the general audience refusing to believe the details data analysis experts have spent countless days and hours collecting. According to Broomell and Kane (2017), "Uncertainty can come from measurements and temporal aspects of scientific study such as the precision of measurement instruments, including both physical and social measurements, randomness that is outside the control of scientists, and estimates of states of the world from the distant past or future that cannot be directly observed."
PICTURE FROM THE ARTICLE, "SCIENCE IS GETTING HARDER TO READ." Photo by romeocane1/Getty
It is also worth noting that even if you are a scientist or researcher, you will not understand all the papers other scientists and researchers have published. According to Chawla (2020), "The study, published in eLife, found that 19% of paper titles and 73% of abstracts included at least one acronym. Of the roughly 1.1 million acronyms identified, the vast majority (79%) were used fewer than 10 times in the scientific literature." Having this notification from another publisher is excellent for anyone new to research. When we do something that we have never done in the past, we immediately feel intimidated.
Regarding analytical investigation, we worry about falling behind in our studies when comparing ourselves to others. We are not trailing in our academic collection. Any printed documents we see online are not perfect the first time. Usually, scientists and researchers must undergo multiple revisions from publishers before releasing the final product. It makes sense for the process to be long, as the scientists and researchers want to ensure the public can trust them.
MY WAY OF GROWING IN RESEARCH
My McNair advisor, Dr. Jeffrey Goodman, and I are investigating how protest-based music videos impact racial attitudes, knowledge, and emotions. We discussed different conferences we wanted to present our study during our preparations. One of the places we looked at is the "Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Annual Convention." This event will occur in San Diego, California, United States of America, from February 08-10, 2024. When Dr. Goodman told me about this convention, I was excited! I never traveled to California, and I already had an enjoyable experience regarding going to research conferences when I went to "The Annual University of Maryland National Conference for McNair Scholars and Undergraduate Research" in March of this year. Unfortunately, Dr. Goodman and I decided not to go to SPSP. We chose not to go as we needed to apply to present at the convention by September 14th, 2023. The issue was we did not have everything ready to submit. We still had some courses we needed to complete for Institutional Review Boards (IRB), draft the proposal for the IRB, upload the survey questions for Student Research Participation (SONA), and many other factors discussed in our meetings.
PICTURE OF THE SPSP 2023 ANNUAL CONVENTION LOGO
We were not devastated after Dr. Goodman, and I realized we could not go to SPSP. That may surprise some, based on how energetic I sound for the convention. However, it was a great moment for us, as we knew we were not behind in our study. For SONA, we could not even upload the questions as we had to wait until September 19th for the SONA system to open. We were also dealing with some personal non-academic issues that required some time to healthy process. This understanding helps us remember that we were not behind in our research. Had we tried to do everything before the September 14th deadline, our project would have been disastrous. Our data would be all over the place, the paper would contain many flaws, and our well-being would continue to decrease. Remembering that we do not need to rush our analysis helps us to continue loving our research. When you get the chance to control when you want to upload valuable information, you feel a sense of empowerment. The content you share with the public is one you should say that you were proud to release. Knowing you took the time to develop something you want people to see should inspire you to continue researching.