Students interested in learning about gathering information attended the University’s first face-to-face research workshop of the semester.
Patrick Daniel, executive director of Learning and Assessment Services, lead the workshop Thursday titled “Conducting Research Using Surveys and Focus Groups.” The seminar is a part of the Learning through Discovery workshop series.
The workshop was designed to show students how to collect information for research in whatever area they are involved in. It focused on how to create a survey, what questions to ask and how to lead a focus group.
“I think it’s important that students learn good methodology, good ways to ask the right questions,” Daniel said. “The information is only as good as how you collect and gather that information.”
Daniel used an interactive approach with the students. He asked them what they wanted to get out of the workshop and what research they were doing.
Jennifer Stearns, a master’s student in Human Resource Development, attended the workshop and said she was pleasantly surprised by what she learned.
“It definitely has a motivating factor,” Stearns said. “You are seeing things that are outside your syllabus. I have some ideas now of different ways to tackle some of my term projects. I didn’t come here expecting to find those ideas, but now that I did, I realize how enriching this program is.”
Psychology senior Rissa Thomas, who said she hopes to get into graduate school, also took advantage of the workshop.
“I got an email about eDiscovery,” Thomas said. “I had to log in and then I found all the events, and I thought ‘Oh hey, this is kind of cool.’ I’m doing my first research project, and it’s very overwhelming. I want all the help I can get.”
Thomas and Stearns said they are surprised at how many students do not attend these free workshops.
“Students need to see how these face-to-face meetings can directly benefit them,” Stearns said. “The online library databases can be pretty daunting. I think that it’s too bad that with around 40,000 students at the University, more people don’t take advantage of this tool.”
Veronique Tran, director of the Learning through Discovery program, stressed the importance of the workshops in the series for every student at the University.
“The knowledge and skills that are covered in the workshops are must-haves for UH graduates,” Tran said. “If you think about it, every project that you will be working on for your job will involve some research. Do you know where to start and how to go about it? What has already been done and how do I find out?
“Of course, for those students planning to go to graduate school or who are currently in grad school, these basic research skills are absolutely essential. The workshops supplement what you learn from your professor or faculty research adviser, who are both experts in their field,” Tran said.
The workshops are available every semester. Another medium students can use to utilize the information is through the online Webinar workshops.
“Students can login from anywhere,” Tran said. “The presenter can still present materials via PowerPoint or share their desktop to demonstrate how to use different tools, and students ask questions using an interactive chat feature. Another advantage is that those sessions are recorded so students who missed the live session can still benefit from the workshop by viewing the archive.”
The next face-to-face meeting will be “Tools to Manage Your References” at 1 p.m. on March 19 at the M.D. Anderson Memorial Library. According to the program’s event flier, the workshop will focus on helping students simplify their research process by being able to organize your sources, such as creating in-text citations and reference lists.
“Remember it’s only an hour and twenty minutes, so there is no way you are going to get everything,” Daniel said. “But if students decide it is something they want to learn about, and we get them curious about it, that is my goal. We want to make them aware, and hopefully, they will come back for more.”
