This blog calls you to think critically about some gaps you have
noticed in the literature you have read thus far. If you think back to
the student work we have read thus far, a major part of an inquiry based
research project involves locating gaps in the conversation. For
example, in the piece we read about Facebook disclosure, the author
noticed a gap in the literature in recognizing there weren't any
considerations for the Myers Brigs Type Indicator in research involving
social behavior. The researcher noticed that the Five Factor Model was
used exclusively, and she set out to occupy this gap by conducting her
own study to see how the MBTI might add something interesting to help
further understand Facebook disclosure.
At this point, you should be pretty well entrenched in your work, and it
is now time to think critically about what might be missing from the
conversation.
Your task for this blog is to deliver a very concise rendition of the
research conversation, and then indicate some gaps in the current
conversation. I'm sure there is a different angle you can look into that
has yet to be explored. Think of this blog posting as a prequel to your
literature review.
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ReplyDeleteMy research study is the effects of veganism in relations to hormonal imbalance, vitamin deficit (mainly vitamin D, b12 and o-mega 3 fatty amino acid) and financial cost of living. Since my research relies heavily on statistic based studies, there isn’t really a personal connection with the social aspect of veganism. Many articles have highlighted the effects of veganism on a nutritional scale level, pointing out the differences in omnivorous’ bone density, energy level, fat, protein and etc. However, none of the scholarly articles have focused on the hormonal imbalance a female may experiment while turning vegan. I have read a few articles about the effects on the male’s sex hormones (testorsteral levels) when turning vegan; however none about the transition from omnivore to vegan in conjunction of hormonal imbalance effects. I have broken my ‘’hormone’’ levels studies into different overall health effects such as: hair, nails and skin improvement, sleep improvement, mood swing improvement, weight improvement & stool improvement. I’m really interested in the stool improvement because I read an article about the effects of veganism on the pancreas, which is a large organ that controls your digestive system.
ReplyDeleteMany sources have confirmed that people turn vegan due to ethnic values rather than health values. However, I believe the younger generation (age 18-25) opt for the diet to seek health benefits. This is where the social aspect of veganism takes a role in the college community (or young generation.) I want to discover the average cost a college vegan spends verses the cost of the typical college dorm student. Also, I’ll be docking the amount of money spent on my groceries and comparing it to the typical college student (someone who is actively healthy.) I want to discover the relationship a veganism has with food verse the relation a omnivore has with food. Of course I will have to keep the gender to female only and take into account their cultural history. Apart from discovering the relation of food they have, budget cost is another important factor. Many online community say that they don’t want to ‘’eat healthy because it’s expensive’’ I want to find out if this is really true and compare the average cost of meals for a vegan verse a typical college student. Does the cost truly outweigh the benefits? Or are they both the same?
Hormones control many aspects in a female’s body. Recently, I took a high dosage of hormone due to the doctor’s recommendations, needless to say, I will switching doctors soon! The high level of synthetic hormone found in many birth control pills are same to help balance a women’s nature hormones out. I became intrigued by this discovery and wanted to look more in depth about hormones in female vegans. I read a few articles which noted the effects of injected hormones (in animals) that could be harmful to humans by consumption. Going back to my theory about hormones and it’s effects on the female body, it basically controls our mood, sex drive, sleep patterns, weight management and more! Can plant based products (high in estrogen) effect the mood? I’m mainly interested in soy products, because I read if males ate too much soy they will start developing too much estrogen. Can this be the same as for females? Also, can a no meat diet (free of ‘’stressed’’ animal hormones) help balance out hormone levels? To what degree, any noticeable change in mood, energy, sleep and sex drive?
Through my research thus far, I've found the biggest gap to be exactly what I'm looking in to researching. It might just be that I've had terrible luck in finding sources that can give me the information that I need, but I've found sources that go in depth on how to implement humor in marketing and business, and sources that study the different types of humor out there. I have not found ANY sources that attempt to discover why people find the things funny that they find funny, nor have I found anything relating to attempting to discover what traits people have in common that have similar humor interests.
ReplyDeleteI am actively researching to try and find information to fill this gap because it will be mighty difficult to discover the information in what causes people to view humor the way they do without any background. At the same time hoever, if I am unable to find any information about it, I will be lucky in a sense, because I will be going in to a field that has not yet been ventured into.
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ReplyDeleteSurprisingly I have found quite a few different angles on my topic of cat people vs dog people but I was still able to locate gaps. Popular sources tend to focus not only on personality differences but also social differences between dog people and cat people. One article states that cat people are more likely to live in the city while dog people are more likely to live in rural areas. The article also mentions that cat people are more likely to enjoy ironic humor and puns while dog people are more likely to enjoy impressions and slapstick humor. This article lists so many more factors such as the likeliness of being more fashionable, having more kids, jogging, etc. What I found interesting was that cat people are apparently more likely to own android phones while dog people are more likely to own iphones. I think if other big companies knew this information on their products they could possibly try to gain more customers by including advertisements with a cat or dog depending on which type of person is less likely to buy their product. So I might look into cat people vs dog people on coke or pepsi, nikon or canon. However, it was not stated how all these statistics were gathered and even though sources were listed at the end of the article none of them were scholarly/peer reviewed. Another popular article suggests looking into if one is happier than the other, which is a view no one has explored yet.
ReplyDeleteWhile searching for scholarly articles I found two that really related to my topic. They both just focus on the personality differences. One uses a survey/personality test based on five personality traits: extroversion, introversion, consciousness, openness, and neuroticism. There are obviously many other personality traits I could compare cat people and dog people to as well such as creativeness, independence, confidence, decisiveness, etc. On the other hand the second scholarly article I came across specifically focuses on the personality differences between those who own aggressive dog breeds and non aggressive dog breeds. I would like to be even more specific and question if the breed of a cat or dog has particular personality traits that their owners also express.
What also surprised me though was that I could not find an article that compared cat people and dog people's intelligence based off of an IQ test, the articles I read were only basing it off of whether they had a degree or not. Therefore,I would like to actually use an IQ test to determine if one tends to be more intelligent than the other.
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ReplyDeleteMy research is on athletes cutting weight for competitive sports including boxing, wrestling, and MMA, and also on extreme dieting for adults. Basically creating an umbrella under the topic of general weight fluctuation in both short intervals and over extended periods of time and comparing the health risks they may impose on the body. From what I have read through my research, a major flaw that I have noticed is that this kind of research should be done over an extended period of time or through a case study or interview setting. Most of the research I looked at has been studies on a one week or one month period, the time in between matches consider "one cutting period", while a longer study to see if the health risks become more drastic or serious as the season progresses.
ReplyDeleteThe second aspect of my research all I have found have been studies on lab animals, usually rats, instead of humans. I believe that there should be interviews and tests run on participates on the biggest loser, and other people that have gone through extreme dieting losing 30-60% of their body weight and then putting large amounts of that weight back on within a six month period. The research I found with lab rats proved that those that fluctuated between a high fat and a low fat diet has a higher life expectancy than those with just a high fat, but lower than a low fat diet. I believe that the rats life cycle is too short to be compared to human life cycle. Even if is was, the switching between high fat and low fat diets was too quick and did not give the rats enough time to gain a large amount of weight to lose and put back on.
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ReplyDeleteMy research project focuses on college students food choices. In most of the articles, the researchers set out to find how many unhealthy vs. healthy foods students ate by reviewing the numbers of what was purchased every day from the college cafeteria. However, the researchers failed to consider the motives behind the food choices. In my research, I found a few articles on the motives of food choices for different countries, but there was no study done specifically for college students. Most articles related to college students and nutrition briefly touched on food motives such as cost, convenience, nutrition, and taste. Although they brushed over these factors, they did not go into detail. What I would like to pursue in my research is to find out what the true motives are behind the food choices of college students.
ReplyDeleteMy research project is about finding how, when, and why football has taken over baseball as the national sport in America. Many of the sources I have read so far talk about the fact that football has taken over as the national sport, baseball ratings are in decline, etc. Many mention television broadcasting, the revenue generated by each sport, the media, and how many people watched a certain game in comparison to another game. What is missing from the conversation is the link between what these articles discuss and how these things contribute to the massive growth of football. What my project is going to focus on is trying to find a connection between all these pieces and see how they impacted the popularity of football. What strategies has the NFL used that have allowed to become a mammoth industry? When did they take over, and what may have sparked it? These are some of the questions I am hoping to find answers to.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing that is missing is the opinion of the fans themselves. Lots of research can be done to try to find what has contributed to the popularity of football, but I feel like you need to ask the fans themselves, because they are the most important factor. Fans are what cause the NFL to stay in existence. Therefore, after I conduct my research on these articles and try to draw my own conclusions on what may have caused the growth of the NFL, I am going to conduct some interviews with people that are both baseball and football fans, and see what they have to say about it. After all, they are the ones that have been directly impacted by it all.
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ReplyDeleteThe project I’ve decided to research this semester is to what extent does social class affect a person’s view on the countries controversial ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws. My research thus far has landed me an abundance of information. I’ve found statistics regarding the states that have such laws, the number of cases a year, and even details on the victims and perpetrators. What I haven’t found, or a gap in the research, is information regarding the factors that shape the nations perceptions on the laws. Nor have I found any information regarding the making of the law, and what the nations views were as the laws were coming to be. At the end of my research, I aspire that I will have obtained enough information and research to come to a conclusion for this gap in research.
ReplyDeleteJulia Chase
ReplyDelete1102
In my paper I will be looking at food choices of college students. Before diving into my research I made a generic list of all the things that could have a possible effect on food choice and came up with: religion, culture, upbringing, location, morals, and convince. But even as I played with the searching and continued to dive into this conversation it became more and more obvious on how little research is being done on how class schedule and the school culture have on “changing food choices”. I want to look more into how students ate before attending university and after university. This may answer the freshman 15 and other nutrient related questions of students. I will try and focus on culture, religious, moral and allergy factors; those maybe variables.
Sarah Mucklai
ReplyDeleteENC 1102-0038
When looking into Beauty pageants, I found that there are a variety of different types through out the United States. Although most are based off of the same values and rules, some extend these rules more than others. Now to simply base my research off of a specific, well known beauty contest such as “Miss America” would be biased and provide a gap in my research in terms of judging whether or not the idea of these beauty pageants are degrading or not. When looking into my research, I must go beyond the norm and look into the actual effects of these contests on the participants themselves. I must look into all the major beauty contests and see what the requirements are, and whether or not these rules provide for a positive impact on the representation of women, or truly degrade the women participants of these competitions. Another Major gap represented is the lack of articles discussing whether or not these pageants are degrading. They do seem to describe the pageants such as “toddlers and tiaras” as a form of child abuse and learned vanity in the young girls, although they do not discuss opinions on competitions held for young women. This is ironic due to the fact that these contests for young girls are usually made to prep them for contests in their future. I plan to develop a questionnaire survey interviewing both the contestants of former UCF pageants, and also men and women on their opinions of these contests. Another major gap in my research is that people in pageants many times come from different backgrounds and cultural groups. These people’s learned beliefs and opinions will make it difficult to come to a consensus on whether pageants are degrading or not.
My research is focused on exploring the child-doctor interaction and the effects on the child’s lifestyle. As I was researching the conversation, I found many sources relating to my topic such as children’s fears of going to the doctor’s office, how healthy children vs. the sick children cope with stress, how children and their parents perceive a doctor’s white coat, how doctors may not understand or connect with the child, and so forth. I could not find exactly if the effects of a positive doctor ultimately contributed to the child’s well being and if it benefited them after the doctor’s visit. These sources provide only a glimpse of awareness to what is actually happening in the medical world. Do we really know how children interact with the doctors and their medical staff? What can we do to solve this problem for future generations? If this is still occurring, can we find new and improved methods to overcome these fears? With that being said, my experiment will hopefully examine that gap more in depth.
ReplyDeleteJames Plyler
ReplyDeleteENC 1102-0038
Through my research I have found sources that talk about the benefits of video games on a psychological level, I've found articles that berate video games for being overly violent and crude, and I've found articles that look extensively at the narrative aspect of video games. The latter of what I read is what I will be primarily focusing on in my research -- the effectiveness of video games as a narrative medium. Something, though, that I keep noticing is missing from the conversation -- what no one seems to bring up in either their praising or attacking of video games is the misunderstanding amongst the general populace as to what video games are despite their popularity. To most individuals, video games are still seen as quite juvenile no matter how mature in content they are. That's why you'll hear stories of adolescent children playing games such as Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, or Bioshock -- games that have a "mature" rating indicating that they are intended for adult audiences. They are seen, just as their names suggest, as games, which by nature has a childish connotation. This is where most of the controversy stems, and if the misunderstanding were rectified the issue of adolescents playing mature games would be resolved just as understanding of movie ratings allows adults to monitor what their kids see. Despite the leaps and bounds video games have made, especially in regards to telling a mature story with complex and well developed characters, there still exist a synthetic dichotomy between video games and more "acceptable" forms of media where there shouldn't. Because video games are seen as being immature, people don't afford them the liberties that books, movies, or television drama's have. Thus, part of my objective is to dismantle said dichotomy, and bring video games into the proper light.
Observing conversation across decades, ideas, and fields, Moral Absolutism and Relativism is far from a new discussion. Stemming from ageless philosophers on ethics such as Aristotle, to contemporaries discussing “good will” such as Immanuel Kant, morals have forever been a hot topic. One would presume that anything and everything that can be discussed would be discussed over the course of nearly two millennia. Though History is stagnant, the future is not. Fortunately, due to the ever shifting perspective of the human race, from time to time, new conversations formulate around new ideas. Initially a gap I had discovered while researching Moral Absolutism and Relativism had been how society’s shift between the two perspectives affected the Catholic Church. However, due to current events a new gap has opened. Continuing on filling in the gap of how relativism has hindered the Catholic Church, I will also be able to discuss a new change of perspective due to current events.
ReplyDeleteMy research is focused on the different motivations that people have as far as choosing their majors or occupation. From the previous journals that I have read, most people were doing surveys that help them compare and contrast the characteristics and motivations that people have. With these subjects, there was already a similarity in the majors the test subjects had. Other sources looked at all of the different things that contribute or may help with someone’s motivations as far as things that happened in their past towards occupational choice. Something that I did notice was missing is the similarities and differences in motivations with students whose’ majors are very different. I feel like the methods section should be much more diverse and should include an equal amount of men and women. Another thing that would be important in researching is that I would have half of the subjects to be freshman and the other half as seniors. With this information, I can compare and contrast the differences of these two stages in life.
ReplyDeleteThrough my research to this point, I have found that in today's society social medias affect specific social relationships such as romantically, friendships, and families. but what it fails to address is how technology has changed to influences these relationships. In only one article that I have found that mentioned how we used to use only telephone to communicate and it was personal, since we could hear inflections within our tone of voice. But now communication has become so informal that it results in the form of simple text and depending on how we read it can come across as rude and insulting. The gap I am finding is that it focuses too much on how we use technology to influence our social relationships today rather than how technology has effected our social relationships over a very short period of time, just within the span of ten years, and how we as a society have learned to depend on technology to influence our relationships. What I am also finding is that psychology counselors are starting to find patterns within relationships that are affected due to the use of social networking and media used to communicate within a relationship and how more than ever college students and adults are building relationships through technology more than face to face contact. They are also using technology as a medium to decided how a relationship is working out. One of the article I read interviewed a student who said that she valued a phone call more than a text when it came to romantic relationships, but he failed to ask her wouldn't she rather actually go and talk with her partner face to face. What I want to find out is how much do we use technology through the use of social media to maintain relationships and it affects our interaction with people when we meet them face to face.
ReplyDeleteIn my reading of the conversation on intersectional relationships across gender expression and sexual orientation, I’ve come across some articles which might serve well as sources of foundational/background information as well as some more relevantly specific articles. From what I’ve gathered so far, the conversation on such intersectional relationships seems rather limited and underdeveloped. Studies exist which have researched the different perceptions that men and women have of their cross-sex friendships. Results showed that girls perceived more help from the relationship but also more conflicts. Instrumentality and expressivity were consistent correlates of closeness and security, but they predicted other features differently in the two genders. A more relevant study discusses how cross-category friendships differ in what they value as important in a close friendship. This study found that individuals in cross-orientation and cross-race friendships placed less importance on how similar their lives and experiences are than those with no such friendships did. What I have found to be a gap in the conversation so far is that there has been inquiry into how communication, interaction, and intimacy differ between friendships between individuals of varying combinations of sexual orientation and gender expression. Furthermore, current studies on intersectional friendships do not seem to factor in transgender individuals.
ReplyDeleteLuis Perez
ReplyDeleteThe same four parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and neglectful) have been used to conduct studies over a variety of subjects. Studies done show that across generations of hispanic immigrants that certain parenting styles have different outcomes with different generations. Studies have also been done to determine what role parenting styles have on two different ethnicities. Parenting styles tend to have a different outcome when they are used on a different race or on the same group but a different generation. Parenting styles have been determined by two criteria such as responsiveness and levels of demand. Even then it is only labeled high or low. There has been research that adds more criteria but it does not broaden the parenting spectrum. They same four parenting styles have been used while children have become more and more complicated. Children are being diagnosed with a variety of social disorders, new generations of mixed culture due to immigrants coming in are causing a sort of hybrid of cultures to appear. The parenting spectrums have not changed while all this is happening. I want to look into creating intermediate levels because no one parent is always authoritative one hundred percent of the time. Possibly mixes between the two parenting style like hybrids to account for they hybrid cultures created. Looking at the criteria and adding more possible options for answers as opposed to just high and low. Exploring more into new and different dimensions of parenting styles to accommodate a new and changing world is something I hope to achieve.
Recently violence has become a huge talking point in today's society, especially when it comes to digital media and more specifically in video games. There is a wide discussion about whether or not violence in video games is negatively impacting younger generations and causing them to become violent themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt seems as if the majority of people speaking out against violent video games are those who have never been involved with them themselves. I think that this comes from a natural tendency to question and be afraid of that which is unknown to us. The defenders of these games like to point out that the violence in games is not a negative influence to rational players or people and that it may only impact people who play them and are already mentally distressed or unstable.
I have grown up playing video games and have seen the industry go through its recent growth. I am a Game Design major at the University of Central Florida. The game industry is something that is very important to me both as a consumer as well as a future game designer. Therefore, I know much about the industry as far as mechanics and the actual workings of games, but I don’t know nearly as much about the opinions of other players regarding why they enjoy playing violent games. Something that I’m excited to get into with this is talking to people who have never been involved with games and learn about their views and opinions. I think that this is the area of my research that I will know the least about because of the fact that I have been involved with these games already and so I can no longer view them from the same perspective as these people.
People have already done research regarding the subject of how playing violent video games affects aggressive behavior. Experiments were done using a few different aggression level tests to calculate aggressive behavior after playing video games that were determined to be violent. The results of these experiments determined that the increase in aggressive behavior was minimal if not insignificant. They also suggested that the increase was less so from the violence and more from the competitive nature of the games.
Another study was done then to take one violent game and one nonviolent game that were both considered of equal competitiveness. They results of this experiment then showed that in fact the two games caused a very similar increase in aggressive behavior after playing, even though one was a nonviolent video game. This research in particular is very important to the conversation because it strengthens the argument that any aggressive behavior caused by playing video games is due to competition within the games and not because of the content.
A major unanswered question that comes to mind is why violence so important to us and why we are fascinated and mesmerized by it, especially in video games. So far one gap in this conversation is that nobody has gone into what makes violent games more popular than others, which may answer what about the games makes people buy them. Another gap that is in the conversation is the fact that there has not yet been research in which subjects of a similar age group, including video gamers and non-video gamers, are interviewed together in the same research about video games and violence. I want to take this approach and form this focus group and use this information together to find as unbiased results as possible.
My research for my topic has brought me to many dissertations and journals that are exactly what I'm looking for. I've come across work on parenting, balancing acts, and much more for multicultural families. Many of them include research that involves interviewing the parents and even the grandparents to get a closer look into the different backgrounds of each parent. There are statistics on bicultural marriages and the rate of divorce because of the conflicting views for each culture.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have noticed is that research on the effects of multiculturalism in children are slim. I have yet to come across work that involved the direct interviews of the children. Children don't have to necessarily be "children", but the offspring of parents with different cultural backgrounds haven't been asked "what is it like?". This is the gap that I've found and there may be more, but I hope to achieve information that will benefit my audience.
Blog September 27, 2013
ReplyDeleteAllison Hoyland
ENC 1102-0038
My research topic involves the controversy between the Common Core State Standards. Most of the articles I have found have been saying either yay or nay about the issue and explaining as to why they believe that. Although, through some of my scholarly articles there are research studies, the majority of articles fail to acknowledge HOW the students are being effected. What is happening to their scores and who is to say standardize testing is either good or bad when they have not studied a mass majority of students. The main reason these standards are even such an issue right now is because of the public worrying about how students in grades k-12 will handle these new standards. Even stated in “The Dangers and Opportunities of the Common Core”, the two authors explain how standards are not new and have been around but then did not supply evidence as to how the children adjusted the last time the standards were changed. I am trying to locate how these effect individual students, not just the “top of the class” students. These articles tend to place an umbrella around all students so finding articles that focus on individual learning could help figure out why these standards should or should not be implemented. The main issue with these standards is that they put most students into one category and that is stated multiple times. It’s ironic, these articles are doing the same exact thing with the students so digging deeper into research will be the only way to find out how these students are handling it, seeing as that should be the most important issue.
Michael Keller
ReplyDeleteDuring my investigation of the ethics of genetic engineering I have come across many perspectives that I had not originally considered during the beginning of my research. These perspectives varied from economics to primarily focusing on the ethical view of the practitioners of genetic engineering. The article based on the economic viewpoint of genetic engineering, explained how genetic can promote not only producers in the food industry but also in the hunting and sporting events such as horse racing and hunting. This article does not take into account that if genetic engineering is approved for sporting, the sports that allow genetic engineering will be more easily monopolized. This is because only the wealthiest players will be able to afford investing capital into the genetic engineering of their animals. Once a solid foundation of investment is set, the monopoly could hold control over the entire sport. Most of the articles also focused on how society views genetic engineering however they all seemed to lack the reasoning as to why we (as humans) feel this way about the animals. Can society morph our ethical standpoint of how animals should be treated? Do old texts such as the Bible have an impact our standpoint on this conversation? Another major gap that I have found is the correlation between the number of pets someone has had and their ethical views of genetic engineering.
Kyle Gonzalez ENC1102-0039
ReplyDeleteMy research topic is to what extend has television affected sleep patterns in the modern world. While looking for the information through the different studies and journals I began to notice a possible, and rather large, gap. All but one of the studies I have found so far have taken place outside of the U.S.A. This raises confusion to the gap that why not study this topic in America, one of the, if not the, largest television consuming countries in the world. Not only that, but the U.S. was where the television was invented so it has had the longest impact in this country. Another possible gap has to do with the opposite perspective about television affecting sleep patterns. When you try to look at it from the point of some people that television helps people go to sleep it cannot be denied the same study. It is claimed that some people leave the television on at night, not to watch, but for the background noise. This is something I will have to look into in the future. The last gap I have noticed so far is how a lot of these studies are involving people with other forms of technology, not just a television; so this concludes there is the possibility that it is not the television alone affecting the sleep onset and/or sleep duration or any other factors. Overall there is limited data focused strictly on the television alone and in this country.
As I have looked further into my research on the changing opinions on gay rights, I have noticed a few gaps that became evident to me as I looked through my own initial sources as well as stumbling upon new sources. My initial question was how the rhetoric of the gay rights movement has changed over the past two decades and why, and how media and pop culture has influenced this shift in public ideology. I believe that this question is a gap within itself because, from my research, I have not found any outside articles or scholarly sources that has connected these two topics and explained the connection and to what extent it exists. But I wanted to look deeper into the conversation. Throughout my research into the articles I have found thus far, I have noticed that there is a gap in the argument of some of the authors. They tend to focus on political ideology and it being the cause for this movement. But even as our country’s political beliefs may have shifted, we are somewhat 50/50 among liberals and conservatives, which caused me to question this argument. If our country is so divided on almost every topic in our nation, then why is gay rights so overwhelmingly supported by both parties and of Americans in general? As we watched the TED women talk, “Fifty shades of gay” my eyes were opened to the idea that familiarity is causing empathy towards the LGBTQ community. This led me to question: Outside of familiarity in everyday life, how has pop culture and media created a stronger sense of familiarity towards this community for those who oppose gay marriage and gay rights? And how has this contributed to this seemingly drastic change in overall public opinion? I also want to tie this gap into the idea that certain rhetoric has changed throughout the years to change the opinions of viewers and readers and which outlets have been most effective in this change. Do they do so by creating a sense of relation between these groups of people, those opposed to the gay rights movement and the LGBTQ community itself, and therefore creating empathy? I believe that all of these questions are valid gaps within the argument surrounding gay rights and equality, and it will further my research to a deeper level and gain insight on the minute details of this shift in public viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteMany of the articles I have read often talk about the bigger reasons as to why people become religious. Like childhood indoctrination, fear of death, mainly factors involving how they've been raised and their environment. Obviously, we cannot summarize why each individual person becomes religious as there are too many things that are unaccounted for.And any articles I've foujnd throw aside things such as personality, insecurities, things that all add up to people adopting a religion or that stay religious. How do these factors contribute to people being religious, how much of a role do they play? The biggest question that still remains a mystery to me, are people unwilling to face their own issues, their own insecurities, troubles etc. and would rather just believe blindly hoping for redemption. I feel like people must be willing to find solutions to their own problems (as first priority), before following a path of blind hope. There are many people that have come to question their faith by looking into themselves, because, for a brief moment they have set aside their religious beliefs. What I will be looking into next is, how willing are people to face themselves, question themselves, rather than following a faith in hope of a better state. This raises an interesting question for my focus group: if you were truly happy with your life, do you think you would still have become religious one way or another?
ReplyDeleteLeah Thomas
ReplyDeleteENC 1102 - 0039
As I continue to delve into the many research articles written regarding dietary habits of college students, I notice quite a few gaps not only in the conversation, but of the research conducted by the many professors and nutritionists that have studied it. For example, the demographic is almost always unbalanced, with the vast majority of those surveyed being Caucasian, and a very small percentage of which are minorities. Those surveyed are always participating on their own behalf (not that I condone forcing students to participate in nutrition surveys), and of course, though there is no incentive to lie, the students might not always be completely truthful with their diet. How many of us have "christmas - treed" a multiple choice survey to complete it, not paying attention to our answers? I believe to get a better idea of the nutritional choices made by university students on the whole, the cafeterias and dining halls should disclose what meals are the most popular, and so on.
Another gap is the reason why students make the food choices they do. The survey "authorities" attribute fast food and starchy meals to the tight college budget and limited free time for preparing healthy meals, though there seems to be little additional reasoning. I would like to see more student perspectives, and will continue to look for articles that accurately depict "their side of the story."
I realize that the lack of a balanced survey pool may also be skewing statistics - for example, there are many global studies that show asian countries consume far more unrefined plant food (UPF) than countries in the Anglosphere. Would having more Asian American student participants show a completely different facet to college nutrition? What effect do different cultural backgrounds have on university students?
Gabrielle Chestnut
ReplyDeleteMy research topic is about finding out more information on animal testing and why scientists use animals on experiments repeatedly. Going through different articles I have found that I can approach my topic from different angles. One angle that I'm approaching is the different alternatives scientists can use today to test medications and such without the use of animal testing. One of the gaps that have come up is that I can't specifically find out what new technology scientist use to replace the use of animals. Another angle I'm using to approach my topic is researching about the non-profit organizations that are against animal testing and the abuse of animals. Their purpose is obviously to get their message heard to their audience and stop as much animal cruelty as possible. The gap that has come up when approaching this angle is discovering why these organizations methods have not succeeded in stopping animal testing and such. With these gaps in my research I will be able to delve deeper into my research and find the possible answers to these questions.
My research question is about educational television, essentially. In my research I have found that there are two different types of educational television. There is pro-social and traditional academic television. Pro-social, is exactly what it sound like. television aimed at children discussing the issues of today. Traditional academic television will have the A, B, C's, and 1, 2, 3's. I have also found regulations on educational television, starting with the Children's Television Act of 1990. These regulations include commercial time limits, and required allotted time on network television for educational shows, which is three hours. My research has shown me the positives and negatives for educational television shows, the different aspects of the shows, which shows are better than other shows, and some expert opinions on the topic. Really the only things I haven't read about in my research is the long term effectiveness and likeability of these educational television shows. Where is the kids opinion? This is my gap. Are these educational shows really effective? What are the favored shows? Pro-social or traditional academic? What do little kids really feel about these shows? What are the opinions of the college kids now that watched educational television?
ReplyDeleteDaniel Li
ReplyDeleteENC1102-0038
The contemporary environmental movement covers quite a wide array of areas. However, throughout my studies, I noticed a gap that I encountered over and over again. While the movement expresses the methods and feelings of both sides, it does not appear to cover the methods used to influence students at all. Instead, the sources tend to give the thoughts and feelings of students. I aim to remedy this by focusing specifically on researching the rhetoric of the environmental movement in order to analyze how it affects students. Perhaps I may shed some light on the key to convincing students to take up various movements. I hope to further sociology and observe exactly what tactics are most effective on students. I may even be able to influence the future generations through my research. I plan to conduct a focus group consisting of several of my peers and asking them to analyze the effectiveness of at least two articles. I then plan to have the subjects discuss the effectiveness among themselves and analyze the rhetoric of each article. It is through this discussion in which I hope to acquire more key information in order to explore new areas. It's a bit of a long shot, but I'm sure I'll come up with something good.
There is a variety of articles available talking about how a target demographic influences different industries, but most of them only really center on one aspect of the demographic, such as age, ethnicity, etc. They don’t really go into detail about how different demographics change or evolve over time, or how they interact with each other.
ReplyDeleteI’ve decided to do my research about the different audiences of anime, but most of the pre-established research on that topic is focused on its native audience: the Japanese otaku. For the most part, western fans (while small, in comparison) are ignored, even though the demographic is steadily rising. Another thing that isn’t often talked about is how the values of each audience come to affect the production of anime. Because of this, I intend to take a more universal approach in analyzing the different demographics.
Tyler Peter
ReplyDeleteIn my topic of Transportation, and why new innovative forms almost never make it to the real world, I have come across some large gaps in the conversation. The sources i have been able to find show the specific issues to one transportation project. Never does one bring up the idea of a linked issue that effects everyone of these projects. Also It is difficult to find sources on new innovative transport and some of the issues that it face, most of the articles i find our on current forms of transport and what hoops they had to get through to become a reality. Though i did find one article specifically on Personal rapid transit. In this article it talks about the proponents of why the system works and should be wildly dispersed and developed all over. I would like to find another source as a counter argument for this specific article on PRT to see what issues that may bring up. I keep finding more sources but I can see where my research will be going, especially with the real research study part of this project. I am truly interested to see what it is that others think could be an issue in this area that is hindering our progress into a more modern transportation network, and a more modern life.
Through my initial research of the correlation between people with sports background and career paths/ earnings, I realized that all research agreed that peope who played sports or play musical instruments did in fact make better employees and in many cases would have a beter chance of getting their "dream job" the evidence that supported these claims was so strong that i got to thinking, maybe it wasnt so much the sports that made these people good employees but maybe certain people joined sports. I tried to locate some sources as to it was sports that made people accountable, responsible, disciplined, etc. or if people that joined sports generally already had these qualities to begin with. much to my surprise there have not been many studies on this topic and realized it was perfect. I began focusing my attention on if sports do in fact teach such great qualities orif sports mearly help to further them along, I plan to speak to many people in the UCF mba program, I will try to locate students with above 3.5 gpa vs students with below 3.0 gpa and see what percentage of those students have sports backgrounds as well as try to interview some business professionals and see how they feel sports has impacted their career choice and performance if at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat I've found consistently through the articles I've read is that they either do not mention how the Patriot Act came into existence (that is, the context of the 9/11 terrorist attacks), or if they did, they place too much blame on former president George W. Bush. One author for example talks of the power this act grants the government, how it is against the fourth amendment, though he almost religiously eludes the context of this and related acts in his article. Passed in 2001 by President Bush, this act was meant to legalize wiretapping of foreign entities under reasonable suspicion of terrorist actions. It’s no wonder this author neglected to comment on the context of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; after all, it’s what provoked legislation to create all these bills justifiably. However, purely domestic spying is where the illegitimacy of government actions really becomes apparent. The major gap I find from article to article is that no one that is critizing the NSA leaves any room for legitimacy, even though there is room: in foreign communications, as we originally intended, following the terrorist attacks.
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