Research Mechanics for Exercise Science
With this research experience, I had the ability to conduct research from the ground up and take part in the whole entire process from start to finish. My research mechanics class taught me how to properly form a hypothesis, examine past literature, conduct a systematic experiment, and evaluate and present the findings. I was able to choose what topic to be researched, what variables we were going to include in our study, and how exactly we were going to obtain the data. By having to conduct an entire experiment in the span of a semester, there was a lot of responsibility put on each of my group members so that we could complete each portion of the project in a timely manner. This resulted in a considerable amount of communication between myself and my group members as well as being responsible for my time management and balancing my other coursework along with school and my personal life. Personally, I would prefer not to work in group projects where we are not all interested in the same topics nor share the same level of passion for the project but this was a great opportunity for me to work on my problem-solving skills and learn how to successfully implement contrasting ideas into one composition. As someone who intends to pursue research at the graduate level, I found it important for me to not shy away from the challenges of working with a group and instead use this experience to develop my skills professionally and as an individual.
Since this was my second research experience that I took part in as an undergraduate student, I had the ability to bring in my past knowledge learned into this experience which helped the overall success of the experimentation. For example, when I conducted research with Dr. Reynolds, I was already familiar with the steps that are suggested to be taken when writing a research proposal and how to write an informed consent document with the proper information included. I was able to take the lead on a lot of aspects of the research project which made the overall process much smoother. Something that I also had to learn was to allow our group to make mistakes because it will benefit all of us. Even though I had past experience collecting and analyzing data, that was only one research project and, as I learned throughout the progression of the course, there is a multitude of ways to conduct research. My group and I did make some mistakes but I learned to accept that and focus on the valuable lessons that I was attaining that I will be able to use in my future research endeavors.
The pdfs displayed above are my group’s introduction and methods reports. These reflect my ability to conduct research and compute information to explain our research procedures and supplemental background information.
Reflection
From my experience with this research project, I will say that, like my past research opportunity with Dr. Reynolds, I have further heightened my excitement to be able to conduct research at the graduate level. Being able to start a research project from scratch was a really eye-opening experience, especially given the time constraints that my group members and I had to complete the project. Just learning about the peculiar specificities and the meticulous steps that need to be taken to conduct research has made me respect the process of research more than the results that are ultimately shared with the world. I am grateful to have had this humbling experience so that when I move on to contributing my own research to the exercise science field, I will remember the lessons that I have learned during this research process so that I can continue to improve upon my current qualifications.