Chapter 7 - Thinking Critically about the Research Process

Thinking critically about the research process involves a cycle of five different stages.  These are asking the right questions, exploring a balance of views, achieving adequate depth in your search, evaluating your findings, and interpreting your findings.

Key Points:

Asking the Right Questions:

• Questions that explore the intensity of the situation
• Questions that explain the situation
• How the situation may affect those around it
• What can be done

Exploring a Balance of Views:

• What do informed sources have to say about this topic?
• On which points do sources agree?
• On which points do sources disagree?

Achieving Adequate Depth in Your Search:

• The surface level offers items from the popular media. Designed for general consumption, this layer of information often merely skims the surface of an issue.
• At the next level are trade, business, technical publications or websites. Designed for users who range from moderately informed to highly specialized, this layer of information focuses more on practice than on theory, on issues affecting the field, and on public relations. While the information is usually accurate, viewpoints tend to reflect a field's particular biases.
• At a deeper level is the specialized literature. Designed for practicing professionals, this layer of information focuses on theory as well as on practice, on descriptions of the latest studies, on debates among scholars and researchers, and on reviews, critiques, and refutations of prior studies and publications.

Evaluating Your Findings:

• Is this information accurate, reliable, and relatively unbiased?
• Do the facts verify the claims?
• How much of the information is useful?
• Is this the whole or the real story?
• Do I need more information?

Interpreting Your Findings:

• What are my conclusions and do they adress my original research question?
• Do any findings conflict?
• Are other interpretations possible?
• Should I reconsider the evidence?
• What, if anything, should be done?

Evaluating Expert Opinion Guidelines:

• Look for Common Ground
• Consider all reasonable opinions
• Be sure the experts knowledge is reasonable in this context
• Don't expect certainty
• Expect Special interest groups to produce their own experts to support their position
• Learn all you can about the issue before accepting anyone's final judgement