Conducting Research: What this Means and How it Applies to your Work (Four Part Series)

Presented By: Dr. Paula Romanow, Centre for Employment Innovation

Whether we know it or not, we use research almost every day of our lives. Wondering how to make that dish? Google recipes. How to build that deck? Look up Youtube tutorials. Have a child rearing question? Talk to other parents. Have a challenge with a client? Talk to your co-workers or look for some literature to find the answers. You may not think of it like that, but what you’re doing is actually conducting research. And research, whether done by you, a co-worker or someone else in the career development field, can make your work, and the life of your clients, better, more effective and deeper.

We tend to think of research as something done by academics, locked away on campuses, exploring various theories. Research is a scary thing to many of us but it doesn’t have to be! Nor are university campuses the only place research can be done. It doesn’t have to be left to the “experts” because they’ve been trained in using specific research methods. You can also learn those methods, and so, when you’re looking for an answer to a question that could benefit a specific client, you know how to set about exploring that.

By the end of the series, you will be able to:

Identify what is formal and informal research, and when to use them
Narrow in on exactly what you want to find out, and be able to frame the question clearly and simply
Understand the Action Research cycle and know how to apply it to your own work
Develop a research plan
Use the appropriate method such as focus groups, surveys, semi-structured interviews, observation, document review, and literature searches to gather your data
Analyze your data quickly and thoroughly
Write research reports, and consider other ways to get your results out there

If you’ve ever wanted to find the answers to your questions, to develop the evidence for your evidence-based practice, then you need this series!

Session 1:

What Exactly IS Research?

Click to access slides for Session 1: What Exactly IS Research