What does research mean to you?

[billymays]

As a CC student aiming for a BA right now, and ultimately a PhD, I want to aim myself in the right direction. When people say "research," I don't really have a solid grasp of what it entails. There seem to be so many possiblilties with psychology, that I can't picture what exactly it is that a researcher does. Would your typical researcher conduct experiments, with a hypotheses, procedures, results, conclusions, etc..? Or is it more of a job that involves plenty of sifting through articles and texts, writing up documents? Could it be both? Let's use clinical psychology as the exact field, since this it where I want to go.

So, in general, what are your impressions of research? What to you like about it? What do you not like about it?

I know that psychology is an extremely wide and versatile field (one of the reasons I love it), so how do you narrow down your interests? In other words, what do you aim for through your research?

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[mixolyd]

When clinical psychologists say research, they are indeed talking about experimental research. It doesn't have to be a complex experiment, but there's usually some data analysis going on. Unless the article is more of an analysis of previous studies to put forth new ideas.

It definitely requires both the experimental and the "sifting through articles" literature review aspects. You need to know your field in order to see which ideas are worth testing.

 

[billymays]

When clinical psychologists say research, they are indeed talking about experimental research. It doesn't have to be a complex experiment, but there's usually some data analysis going on. Unless the article is more of an analysis of previous studies to put forth new ideas.

It definitely requires both the experimental and the "sifting through articles" literature review aspects. You need to know your field in order to see which ideas are worth testing.

Thanks! Interesting answer. "Ideas worth testing"- that seems like there's some room for creativity there, no?

 

[InNae]

There absolutely is room for creativity within the bounds of testable questions. Clinical psychology is a scientific field (we use the scientific method to systematically test hypotheses), so most papers are research reports. However, researchers also sometimes write theoretical papers in which they just discuss various psychological phenomena or put forth creative new theories that might or might not be testable. A theory that is not testable obviously will never have empirical support. What both "types" of research papers have in common is, as someone mentioned above, a comprehensive grasp of the existing literature and evidence so that the new theory or the new study builds on prior knowledge.

You are in a great position to start building your knowledge base in the topics that interest you. This is one of the most time-consuming and challenging tasks for new graduate students, as many are starting at the beginning, and there is so much to read, and you have a big head start! If I were you, I would start now with conducting lit searches and reading and annotating literature. There are several free citation managers that allow you to store, organize, and annotate papers/citations, and I assume your CC has access to PsycInfo and/or Pubmed, depending on your interests?

I also frequently recommend the book "What Psychology Majors Could (and Should) Be Doing: An Informal Guide to Research Experience and Professional Skills" by Silvia, Delaney, and Marcovitch. "Psychology majors" could be replaced by "people at any level who are interested in preparing for future application to PhD programs in psychology". The book focuses on preparation for PhD programs in any area of psychology, not just clinical, but I think it really gives great tips and helps students stop worrying that they're missing some essential step.

Edited to answer original question: It is challenging to narrow down interests. In the beginning I was interested in several broad (and related) topics. I started reading and taking relevant classes (more reading than classes), and from that broad foundation was able to naturally identify and focus on narrower subtopics. I have also changed research interests at several points, and one of my favorite things about research is the ability to shift focus as interests change. Of course you don't want to bounce around from topic to topic, but there are certain points in training when making changes is easier. For example, I changed subtopics between my enroute masters degree and my doctoral dissertation. In your case, you might seek out brief research experiences in several different labs before choosing one as a primary undergraduate research experience.

Your enthusiasm is really great, and I wish you the best!

 

[billymays]

There absolutely is room for creativity within the bounds of testable questions. Clinical psychology is a scientific field (we use the scientific method to systematically test hypotheses), so most papers are research reports. However, researchers also sometimes write theoretical papers in which they just discuss various psychological phenomena or put forth creative new theories that might or might not be testable. A theory that is not testable obviously will never have empirical support. What both "types" of research papers have in common is, as someone mentioned above, a comprehensive grasp of the existing literature and evidence so that the new theory or the new study builds on prior knowledge.

You are in a great position to start building your knowledge base in the topics that interest you. This is one of the most time-consuming and challenging tasks for new graduate students, as many are starting at the beginning, and there is so much to read, and you have a big head start! If I were you, I would start now with conducting lit searches and reading and annotating literature. There are several free citation managers that allow you to store, organize, and annotate papers/citations, and I assume your CC has access to PsycInfo and/or Pubmed, depending on your interests?

I also frequently recommend the book "What Psychology Majors Could (and Should) Be Doing: An Informal Guide to Research Experience and Professional Skills" by Silvia, Delaney, and Marcovitch. "Psychology majors" could be replaced by "people at any level who are interested in preparing for future application to PhD programs in psychology". The book focuses on preparation for PhD programs in any area of psychology, not just clinical, but I think it really gives great tips and helps students stop worrying that they're missing some essential step.

Edited to answer original question: It is challenging to narrow down interests. In the beginning I was interested in several broad (and related) topics. I started reading and taking relevant classes (more reading than classes), and from that broad foundation was able to naturally identify and focus on narrower subtopics. I have also changed research interests at several points, and one of my favorite things about research is the ability to shift focus as interests change. Of course you don’t want to bounce around from topic to topic, but there are certain points in training when making changes is easier. For example, I changed subtopics between my enroute masters degree and my doctoral dissertation. In your case, you might seek out brief research experiences in several different labs before choosing one as a primary undergraduate research experience.

Your enthusiasm is really great, and I wish you the best!

Wow nice answer! I feel much less intimidated and much more informed now. The whole premise of research really seems like an integration of reading, science, and creativity/applicatbility. I'm actually pretty excited about this. I will try to start doing lit searches. My CC has a great library, plus journal databases (i.e. ebscohost, jstor..though I'm not sure about those you mentioned). How exactly do I go about doing this and annotating? Just read and take notes? Sounds like a great idea to start building my foundation now, so essentially should I just start reading and reading?

I'll also try to get a copy of that book, maybe over the holidays. Thanks agian, I really feel ready to get a head start on all of this.

 

[ssodium]

How exactly do I go about doing this and annotating? Just read and take notes? Sounds like a great idea to start building my foundation now, so essentially should I just start reading and reading?

At first, I thought the number of articles and papers that I had to keep track was overwhelming and had no clue how to organize them. Then I found Papers, which is an awesome software that creates your personal library of research articles. You can enter keywords/tags for articles, write notes, highlight, create folders/subfolders...etc. It also makes citing much easier when writing papers. I had to pay around $50 (after student discount) for it, but I think it was one of the best investments I made. They also let you try it free for 30 days, so you can test it out and see if it's something that is worth your money.

Also, there are other free pdf organizing softwares...one of them is Mendeley. Maybe you can try this one out too! Personally, I didn't really like it but I know some people prefer it to Papers. For me, another big bonus for Paper is that I can sync articles between my mac, ipad and iphone (...big apple user haha), which really makes my life much much easier.

 

[Goobernut]

Wow! Thanks for the software recommendation! That was incredibly useful.

 

[bmedclinic]

I'm a huge Mendeley fan. Like the apple person above said, I'm an open source person- so Mendeley being cross platform and open source pleases me.

I have many research interests and I get to share these via Mendeley.
When I started doing research as an undergrad, I was doing metacognition research but was very interested in anxiety. I did some work with both of those, and then crossed over to just anxiety and other issues (sleep, dangerous behaviors, etc). Anxiety in primary care, etc. Throughout all that time, I met, befriended, and was classmates with many researchers who have varied intersts that span all of this and more and I use Mendeley to share citations with many of these people.

 

[syzergy]

+1 for Mendeley!

I do prefer printing out articles so I can scribble all over them but I felt like I was killing all the trees. Many of the articles were for classes and unrelated to my primary interests. I felt bad printing them and knowing that I would read them once and probably never look at them again. Mendeley is great because you can search your notes. I can't count how many times I've frantically searched through my binders of papers to find that one important note I wrote on the margin of one paper.

 

[mewtoo]

+1 for Mendeley!

I do prefer printing out articles so I can scribble all over them but I felt like I was killing all the trees. Many of the articles were for classes and unrelated to my primary interests. I felt bad printing them and knowing that I would read them once and probably never look at them again. Mendeley is great because you can search your notes. I can't count how many times I've frantically searched through my binders of papers to find that one important note I wrote on the margin of one paper.

I didn't realize that about Mendeley, though I'm more of a highlighter. I don't highlight any other type of documents but articles... This x-mas break I realllllly need to organize everything and put them in there. My folders in my computer are crazy right now.

Also, OP, the more you read articles, the better and faster you'll get at reading them.

 

[syzergy]

I didn't realize that about Mendeley, though I'm more of a highlighter. I don't highlight any other type of documents but articles... This x-mas break I realllllly need to organize everything and put them in there. My folders in my computer are crazy right now.

Also, OP, the more you read articles, the better and faster you'll get at reading them.

You can highlight too! Yay science!

 

[Goobernut]

I have iAnnotate on the iPad, and use that for grading and all sorts of things, but it uses Dropbox. Which is not bad, but it does not necessarily assist with organization. I guess I should have looked harder

Metwoo -- my folders are A MESS!!! My poor Dropbox looks like PsychInfo threw up in it.

 

[Jeina]

I have iAnnotate on the iPad, and use that for grading and all sorts of things, but it uses Dropbox. Which is not bad, but it does not necessarily assist with organization. I guess I should have looked harder

Metwoo -- my folders are A MESS!!! My poor Dropbox looks like PsychInfo threw up in it.

I also use iAnnotate, but then I attach my annotated PDFs to their associated references in Mendeley so that I can find them easily. Might be something you'd like to consider...

 

[mewtoo]

I have iAnnotate on the iPad, and use that for grading and all sorts of things, but it uses Dropbox. Which is not bad, but it does not necessarily assist with organization. I guess I should have looked harder

Metwoo -- my folders are A MESS!!! My poor Dropbox looks like PsychInfo threw up in it.

I currently have three folders under the same name for one research project and that's not counting the subfolders or my flashdrive. My computer is made up of psychinfo vomit right now.