Aging: Evaluating Skill Related To Research and Scholarly Writing

Before the completion of the doctoral program, conducting research is essential. It gives the student an understanding of core content and emphasizes the techniques utilized in research. The learnings could then be applied to practical life in relevant industries where the doctorate students would step in the future. This paper aims to evaluate my skills related to research and scholarly writing and identify a skill that needs to be improved.

Potential Skill That I Would Like To Strengthen For Research

The potential skill I want to strengthen is research, which is time management. Both primary and secondary research take their respective times to complete; however, primary research is more time-consuming. Since I have completed Week 1 tasks and Week 2 readings are used extensively, I have learned that selecting pertinent content online that should be related to the research question is undoubtedly a vital step in research. I was affected by my own time management tactic as I felt secondary research takes extensive time to select suitable articles. Ensuring the articles are not outdated and that they are credible needs a critical eye, which certainly requires.

Reading the whole article is not possible sometimes since scholarly sources are lengthy. I tended to read abstracts, summaries, and conclusions sometimes, which I felt might not be sufficient to decide whether I should select the study for inclusion in my paper. Week 2 readings about awareness, risk perception of dementia for aged people, self-compassion, coping strategies, stress management...

It required effective use of digital tools and systematic research techniques to be able to know whether I should add the article to my paper or not. Arranging my research in a structured manner took time, which I perceive could be the need for my skill strengthening.

Time Management

The skillful application of time, where the use of resources is made for finishing the project, is the skill that a researcher must be...

…not wasting time looking for something that does not apply to my research objectives.

I must be strict about my time drain and release myself from the interruptions and procrastination that might come with my time management (Chase et al., 2013). The phone calls, messages, and looking on the phone for investing time in social media posts must be avoided. I intend to learn to set my priorities straight so that high-priority work comes first and low-priority tasks do not eat up my time that should have been used otherwise. Postponing also affects my productivity sometimes due to several interruptions that victimize me. I am left with little time to find ten more sources, for example, and then I regret that I should have prioritized them well. I leave the remaining task to the next day, adversely impacting my persistence. Being disciplined and keeping myself motivated despite several distractions is what I aim to fortify myself with in my future research through the doctoral program.

References

Aeon, B., Faber, A. & Panaccio,…