Why Might Objectivity Be Considered an Important Goal in Both Conducting and Presenting Research?

¶ … objectivity be considered an important goal in both conducting and presenting research? Imagine this scenario: you open up the newspaper and read that oatmeal is helpful in reducing cholesterol. Immediately, you are eager to rush out and buy some oatmeal until you realize that the study confirming this hypothesis was performed by a popular cereal company. Without objectivity, there is the likelihood that the rigor needed for effective research may be compromised.

Even if it is not, there may be a perception of bias that can affect the willingness of others to embrace the final results. The scientific realistic perspective demands objectivity to ensure that all of the proper protocols involved in hypothesis testing, the use of a control group, and appropriate analysis of data are observed when the scientific method are being deployed (Lodico et al. 2010: 14).

Given that research can have a meaningful impact upon people's lives, either in terms of setting policy that affects people's health or how a group is perceived by outsiders (in the case of an ethnography, for example), objectivity is often demanded of academic researchers. Q2. As a budding scholar-practitioner, do you think objectivity is difficult to achieve? Why or why not? Objectivity can be challenging to achieve given that the researcher always has biases and assumptions that he or she is dealing with, based upon personal experience and past research.

While the most obvious example of bias is a financial or political bias in favor of a result, a researcher can simply be biased because of a personal desire to confirm his or initial hypothesis or based upon his or her cultural worldview and the writings of scholars he or she respects in the field who have previously written on the topic. Even the selection of a topic such as the study of Hispanic women and their perceptions of feminism has an implied bias that 1.

Racial and demographic factors influence one's point-of-view and 2. Feminism is a significant social construct. A study of the effects of a drug upon depression begins with the presumption that depression is a mental illness in need of treating. There is no purely objective research. Q3. Lastly, do you think there is one research method or approach that lends itself to being more objective? Why or why not? While complete objectivity may be impossible, certain forms of research are more blatantly subjective.

Qualitative research does not have the rigor of the scientific method in the sense that it lacks a control group and often a method of gathering data that can be statistically analyzed. It is based upon interviews, observations, and the subjective perceptions of the researcher. In some forms of qualitative research, the researcher is actually an active participant in the activities, not simply an observer. This often changes the dynamic of how the subjects relate to one another and increases the level of emotional involvement of.