Lecture 5 - Part 2 - Finding, Understanding and Citing Source Material

Question 1

What are three cognitive biases in research?

Answer 1

• Confirmation bias
• negativity bias
• Groupthink

Question 2

What is confirmation bias?

Answer 2

The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories

Question 3

What is negativity bias?

Answer 3

The tendency to remember negative events far more easily (more available) than positive ones

Question 4

What is groupthink?

Answer 4

When a group with a strong leader values harmony and coherence over accurate analysis and critical evaluation

Question 5

What are primary resources?

Answer 5

• Journal articles
• First time research findings have been made available
• Written by original researchers

Question 6

What are secondary resources?

Answer 6

• Textbooks reporting research, literature reviews describing and summarising multiple primary sources
• May be published several years after research originally published
• Written by author of textbook or review

Question 7

What are positives of primary resources?

Answer 7

• Data and analysis results interpreted by original authors and so more credible
• Contains greater detail about methods and so easier to be critical regarding reliability and validity of findings

Question 8

What are advantages of secondary sources?

Answer 8

• Interprets, analyses and/or explains primary sources
• May include biases in interpretation introduced by textbook/review authors
• But useful as summaries of research area where overview may be important and/or useful

Question 9

What are peer-reviewed research reports?

Answer 9

• Peer-reviewing is a voluntary activity for academics
• ‘Associate Editor’
• Part of our ‘academic citizenship’

Question 10

What are peer review journals?

Answer 10

• Evaluation of scholarly research submitted for publication
• Anonymous review by researchers and/or experts in the subject field
• Assessed for originality, validity and quality

Question 11

What are boolean operators?

Answer 11

• Allows you to refine searches so that you have a manageable number of ‘hits’
• Can search in several stages, refining search terms at each stage

Question 12

What does AND or + achieve?

Answer 12

• Narrows a search
• Retrieves records containing both/ all keywords

Question 13

What does OR or , achieve?

Answer 13

• Broadens a search
• Retrieves records containing either or all keywords
• Useful for retrieveing synonmys or variant spellings

Question 14

What does NOT or ANDNOT or - achieve?

Answer 14

• Excludes keywords from a search
• Use with case so as not to exclude relevant keywords

Question 15

What do parentheses (brackets) achieve?

Answer 15

Use to group search elements

• Database searches bracketed terms first and then adds them to the remaining search elements

e.g. (teenagers or adolescents) AND eating disorders

• Will search for (teenagers or adolescents) first and then eating disorders within the initial, narrowed list

Question 16

What do truncations (*) achieve?

Answer 16

• Allows searching for any words starting with that word stem

e.g. treat*

Would find treatment, treatments, treated, treatable, etc.

• Use with care, as unwanted words may also be searched for
• The truncation symbol used may vary between different databases

Question 17

What do wildcards (? or $) achieve?

Answer 17

• Allows searching for words with variant spellings
• Substitute for 1 (or more) or 0 letters

e.g. behavio$r will find behavior and behaviour

organi?ation will find organisation and organization

• The wildcard symbol used may vary between different databases

Question 18

What is cumulative research?

Answer 18

Cumulative means that research builds upon existing knowledge or theory. It isn’t enough just to collect information in a haphazard or random fashion. Instead research has to develop previous insights