Jim Disrude came into my new communication technology class last week and discussed how to conduct research well. He used his own research work as an example.
Disrude did a research paper on the effects of Teacher Self-disclosure via Social Networks on Teacher Competence. For this topic he created two Facebooks displaying two different versions of the same professor. One version displayed the professor as an outgoing, fun guy, with a fun profile picture. The other version displayed the professor as a very professional and mature kind of guy, with a profile picture of him in a suite.
Once Disrude finished creating the Facebooks he showed them to undergraduate students of both sexes and made them decide which professor they would want to have.
Results showed that the majority of students would prefer to have the fun looking professor over the other one, even though both professor were technically the same person with the same credentials listed on Facebook.
Disrude’s expample of his own research is a great display of well-put together work, because he chose a great topic that is relevant and important to him. Disrude, himself is a professor. The way he went about conducting his own research is impressive. His Facebook professor test/survey was perfect for his topic. The audience he targeted for his research results was both specific and fitting.
Overall after hearing Disrude speak, I now feel more prepared to conduct my research well. He gave great advice and a great example with his own work.
I too feel the same after hearing his presentation. Not only do I feel more prepared to do my own research, but after listening to someone talk about their own research, I now feel as though my goals are attainable.
ReplyDeleteHave to agree with both you and Matt. Now that it is done, its satisfying to see how things worked out similarly to what Disrude was saying. But must admit it was tough to hammer out the writing for me. Maybe should have chosen a different topic.
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