1. Discuss your process for conducting a search. What resources will you use to explore the literature in your field and how will you evaluate the quality of the articles selected?
My field of interest at the doctoral level is on how people with different personalities can work together to achieve organizational goals. Conducting research on my topic requires creative and critical thinking. I will be able to use the resources available at the university library, both digital or online sources, as well as print sources. All peer-reviewed sources that appear in academic or scholarly journals will be preferable to sources from websites, but occasionally I may initiate my academic inquiry with cursory online searches. Online searches can sometimes stimulate my creativity and show me what subject areas I can investigate later. For example, my research might lead me to articles in the field of personality psychology, trait theories of leadership, and also organizational psychology.
To evaluate the quality of the articles I include in my doctoral research, I will first recognize the value of citing peer-reviewed academic journals. Peer-reviewed academic journals are generally easy to identify because they will be catalogued in proprietary or private databases like Ebsco. On the other hand, sources that are less reliable will be simply placed on any website, blog, or popular culture website. Newspapers are not considered scholarly sources, but they...
Articles that are authored are usually preferable to articles published under an organization’s name, or with no author credit at all. Finally, some articles published by organizations may be reliable depending on the organization’s own credibility.
2. How might worldview influence the role as a scholar and researcher? How can a worldview, Christian or otherwise, enrich research through a union of faith and academics? How might one handle perspectives, topics, and research that may challenge his or her worldview?
Worldview is the framework we use to conduct our research. Because worldview may occasionally reveal researcher bias, it is important for the researcher to explain their frame of reference or philosophical perspective early in their research paper or dissertation to alert the reader to their point of view. Disclosing worldview can be considered part of academic research ethics and honesty. Worldview does not necessarily imply the researcher is biased, but does show that the researcher’s method of inquiry and hypotheses are guided by an overarching belief system. Moreover, a researcher’s worldview informs the theoretical framework they use for guiding their investigations. A theoretical framework aligns the work with other work within the same field.…
