Professional Strategies Discussions

CA499 Professional Strategies
Discussions

Week 1-Discussion

Welcome to the Discussion Forum!
Each week, you will be asked to respond to the prompt or prompts in the discussion forum. Your initial post should be a minimum of 100 words in length and is due by Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. If you have not done so lately, please review the Rules of Discussion.

For your follow up post…review the responses provided by your peers. Engage in conversation, or even civil debate, as you discuss their insights and viewpoints. You may ask questions for clarification (if you are confused by their initial post) or pose questions that advance the conversation. You might even find a topic that leads you to further research in the area!

Research Topic

For this course, you’ll be building one final academic research paper to highlight the wealth of information you learned at Grantham. As part of your degree plan, you were asked to concentrate in several areas (multidiscipline). Your research paper must address a profession-related issue from at least two discipline perspectives. These disciplines come from courses you have taken either as electives or concentrations.

In developing your topic, think of something you are passionate about. For example, a nursing student might be interested in work conditions; specifically – why do nurses experience burnout. The student might interweave Psychology and Business – and write a paper about “The effects of overtime on nursing burnout” (see more examples).

This week, you will share your discipline background and describe potential topics for your research.

• Introduce yourself and identify the multiple disciplines you studied as either electives or a concentration.
• How have these disciplines influenced you as a member of your community, and as an employee and/or employer.
• List at least two disciplines you plan to interweave in your research (Discipline 1: XXXXXX, Discipline 2: XXXXXX).
• Share two different profession-related research topic ideas that interweave these disciplines and describe why you are interested in these topics.
In your follow up posts, respond to a minimum of two other students and provide constructive feedback on their topics. Do the topics seem feasible within the time frame of the course? Do the topics seem too broad or too narrow? Do you have any suggestions on where your peer might find literature on the topics? What do you find interesting about the topics?
View your discussion rubric.

Week 2 Discussion CA499

Your initial post should be a minimum of 100 words in length and is due by Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. If you have not done so lately, please review the Rules of Discussion.

Academic Research

Academic research begins in an academic library. Although our first instinct may be to Google for answers, we must differentiate between how we find answers to everyday problems and how we conduct research for an academic topic.
This week, you will share your experiences with personal research and how the academic research process differs.
• Think about the research you have done for a major purchase, life decision, or personal problem.
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o Describe the process you used to find the information you needed.
• Now think about the academic research you will conduct in this course.
o Describe the process you will use to find the information you need.
o How will this process be different than research for personal problems?
o How do you decide what information to trust when doing this type of research?
o What recommendations do you have for your classmates?
o
In your follow up posts, respond to a minimum of two other students and provide constructive feedback on their topics. Have you had a similar personal research experience? Did your classmate make a clear distinction between personal and academic research? What recommendations do you have for your classmate in addition to what they described for conducting academic research?
View your discussion rubric.

Week 3 Discussion

Your initial post should be a minimum of 100 words in length and is due by Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. If you have not done so lately, please review the Rules of Discussion.

Field Research

While we will not be conducting research involving human subjects (e.g. surveys, interventions, experiments) in this course, we may incorporate information from experts and/or datasets.

This week we will discuss potential candidates for an expert interview and potential datasets to gather more information for our research. Consider your research topic and what you have already uncovered in your research process.
• List two experts (e.g. local or national) you might interview to get firsthand information for your research topic.
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• Provide a brief overview of your expert’s credentials and why you chose them.
• List two datasets (e.g. government or organization) you might use to get primary data information for your research topic.
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• Provide a brief overview of the dataset’s information and why you chose them.
• Do you feel an expert interview or dataset is the most feasible option for your research? Explain why?
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In your follow up posts, respond to a minimum of two other students and provide constructive feedback on their topics. Did your classmate give you additional ideas for your research? Does your classmate’s choice appear to be feasible? Do you have any additional recommendations for your classmate’s research activities?

View your discussion rubric.

Week 4 Discussion CA499

Your initial post should be a minimum of 100 words in length and is due by Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. If you have not done so lately, please review the Rules of Discussion.
Research Sources
To write about any topic, a person needs to be informed about it. By now, you should have identified multiple sources that can be used to support your work. Research is, however, an iterative process where we continue to evaluate (and revise if needed) our question(s), thesis and the relevancy of the sources we have gathered to support our work.

This week we will discuss the research process and how we feel about our progress in gathering sources.

• Are you satisfied with your sources? Explain.
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• What will you do if you need more or different information once you start writing your draft?
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• What has been the hardest part of doing research for you so far?
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• What questions do you still have about the research process?
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In your follow up posts, respond to a minimum of two other students and provide constructive feedback on their topics. Have you had a similar experience to your classmate? What helped you overcome any obstacles? Do you have any additional recommendations for your classmate’s research activities?

View your discussion rubric.

Week 5 Discussion CA499

Your initial post should be a minimum of 100 words in length and is due by Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. If you have not done so lately, please review the Rules of Discussion.

Ethical Research

There are federal ethic codes that prevent us from completing human subject research in this course. However, there are other types of ethical issues we need to keep in mind as we work on our first draft. Ethical principles in research are: honesty, objectivity, integrity, carefulness, openness, respect of intellectual property, confidentiality, social responsibility, non-discrimination, competence, and legality.

This week we will discuss the ethical aspects of the research process.

• What moral principles guide your research?
• How have you maintained an objective point of view in the research process?
• What responsibility do you have toward your research topic?
• What ethical issues might come into play in deciding what research findings you present?
• How have you been affected by conducting this research?
• Will your research directly benefit society? How?

In your follow up posts, respond to a minimum of two other students and provide constructive feedback on their topics. Have you had a similar experience to your classmate? What helped you overcome any obstacles?
Do you have any additional recommendations for your classmate’s research activities?

View your discussion rubric.

Week 6 Discussion CA499

Your initial post is due by Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. If you have not done so lately, please review the Rules of Discussion.

Peer Review

The peer review process is integral to scholarly research. The first and most important thing to remember is that peer review is for the reviewer as much as for the author. Reviewing someone else’s work is one of the best ways to learn how to edit your own.

Post your draft (week 5 assignment) as an attachment to this forum as your initial post.

Choose at least two of your classmate’s papers to review. If someone already has a review, choose another peer’s paper to review (unless everyone already has a review). Answer each of the following questions to provide constructive feedback to your peers.

1. Was there a clear and concise thesis statement? Explain.
2. Was there a clear and concise problem statement?
3. Was the problem statement supported by evidence? Explain.
4. Was there a clear and concise research question(s)? Explain.
5. Was the body of research organized and easy to understand? Explain.
6. Did the author answer the research question(s) clearly in the discussion section? Explain.
7. Were inferences drawn from the body of research? Explain.
8. Did the paper use proper APA formatting? Explain.
9. Did the author support assertions with in-text citations and references? Explain.
10. What areas need improvement? Explain. What areas were strongest? Explain.
11. Do you have any other constructive feedback or recommendations to help your peer improve? Explain.
12. How did reviewing this paper help you with your own research paper? Explain.

View your discussion rubric.

Week 7 Discussion CA499

Your initial post should be a minimum of 100 words in length and is due by Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. If you have not done so lately, please review the Rules of Discussion. 

Research Abstract

Although you will not be including an abstract in your final research paper, it is important that you are articulate your entire research project in a clear and concise paragraph. The abstract is not an introduction, it is a brief summary of the most important points made in the research. In larger research projects, the abstract is the first thing people read in to decide if the paper is worth their time.

This week, you will craft your abstract for the discussion. This should be between 100-150 words (this can be challenging). When crafting and completing your abstract for your classmates to read, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does my abstract summarize all the most important points in my paper?
2. If someone reads my abstract will they get all the main points that I want to make in the paper?
3. Does my abstract stand alone or does it lead to other parts of the paper?
4. 
   If the latter is true, chances are good that you have not written an abstract. Upon posting your abstract to this forum, please respond to at least two of your colleagues’ abstracts (e.g. what questions do you still have about their arguments upon reading their abstracts?).

View your discussion rubric.

Week 8 Discussion CA499

Your initial post should be a minimum of 100 words in length and is due by Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. If you have not done so lately, please review the Rules of Discussion.

Research Impact

Research impact is the effect research has beyond academia. Research often generates knowledge that benefits society, culture, and the environment. Research impact is a wide-ranging and varied.

This week, write about the potential impact of your research project. In your post, address the following aspects of impact:

• Social Impact
• Cultural Impact
• Environmental Impact
• Legal Impact
• Economic Impact
• Technology Impact
• Policy Impact
• Practice Impact
• Knowledge Impact

In your follow up posts, respond to a minimum of two other students. Do you have a similar potential impact or very different? What questions do you have for your peer?

View your discussion rubric.