Research as Genuine Inquiry

Welcome to Introduction to Inquiry Based Research. This blogger site will help you navigate through the course. It contains assignment handouts, helpful links to related topics, and instructions on how you should complete your semester long portfolio project.

To begin with, it is important to identify what is meant by inquiry based research. When academics conduct inquiry based research, they are looking for answers to questions that others might be interested in as well. This kind of research is a bit different from approaching a topic for which an individual already has a strong opinion. For example, I might be supportive of gay marriage, so I research articles that support my position and use those sources as a way to perpetuate my position. Inquiry based research is a bit different because the research starts with a question. Typically the question does not have a simple answer and it represents a space of exploration. If I were to ask an inquiry based question about the perpetuation of gay marriage and gay rights, I might ask this: How have the rhetorical strategies of the gay rights movements changed in the past ten years and how are their messages framed to overcome constraints that inhibit their objectives? If I set out to answer this question, my approach is much different than if I simply try to find articles that support my position regarding gay rights.

Here is what another inquiry based question might look like: How and to what extent do different environments impact the composing processes of undergraduate students?

Let's say that I am a student in this course and the aforementioned question is what I plan to use to complete my research project. I noticed while writing as an undergraduate that I liked having some kind of background music or noise in my writing environment. I wasn't very productive shut up in my room without any noise or activity going on. I have some hunches about my own experiences regarding writing, and now I need to find some articles about the subject to see what kinds of research have been conducted on the subject. I'm going to need to find some scholarly sources for my project (because I want some sources that are very credible), but I also may want to look at some popular sources (because I want some sources that are more current).

After reading many articles and diving into the subject a bit further, I might notice that much research has been conducted to identify writing processes with some attention to writing spaces. The research on writing spaces seemed to focus on physical spaces, but the physical spaces of today are different from those of the past decade. To investigate this further, I decide to hold a focus group where I meet with five students from UCF who range from ages eighteen to twenty-four (two freshman, one sophomore, one senior, and a graduate student). In order to examine how they use their writing spaces, I prepare a list of questions for the group. As moderator, my goal is to keep the conversation moving and ask follow up questions to see how they are affected by space. Of course, I record the interview and provide refreshments for the group.

After the session, I transcribe the interview (or I use software to transcribe it for me). This becomes a set of data that I can look at as evidence to make some kind of argument about the ways that writing spaces impact writing performance. There are probably many other ways to gather data for this project, and I invite you to think of ways you might have done the study.

As you embark to start this research based course, it is important that you begin to think about a genuine inquiry based research question that you can use to guide your semester long research project. Think outside the box. You might want to consider a research question that allows you to explore your major in more depth.

If I were taking this course, here are two inquiry based questions that I might look into: How do stand up comedians develop and write material for their shows? In what ways are new communication technologies impacting the development of relationships and courtship?

No matter what you choose to research, one of the biggest keys is picking something that you have a genuine interest in. Moreover, if you are a legitimate stakeholder in the subject you are investigating, I promise you will find this project more fulfilling.  

Welcome aboard!