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Reading Guide: 

  1. What is primary research defined as? What are its ultimate goals? 

  2. Discuss some of the different requirements to conduct ethical primary research. Why is it important to do so? 

  3. Look at the following two research questions:

    1. What exactly do teenagers think and know about war and conflict? How do they learn about it?

    2. What do students at Williams High School think about the current conflict between Israel and Palestine? Where mechanisms are they using to learn new information about the issue?How do these questions exemplify the qualifications for question forming described in the chapter? Explain. 

  4. The chapter describes different scenarios in which primary research would be the more appropriate method. Identify a phenomenon relevant to your field of study that you could observe via primary research; then, write a research question related to that phenomenon,, and elaborate on how it matches primary research criteria

    1. Does it work through asking questions and using direct observations?

    2. Does it already have a wealth of information published? How would this question work alongside or add to this published information?

    3. Is it testable/observable?

    4. Given your chosen phenomenon, would deductive or inductive reasoning be more appropriate? Explain why for which method of reasoning you choose.

  5. Using the research question from the above question, compare and contrast the different reasons why/why not you would utilize a survey or interview to help with your research process

    1. Observation – What would you observe? How would you avoid bias in your observations?

    2. Survey – What patterns do you want to trace in your survey? What strategies would you use to avoid bias in your survey questions? How would you try to distribute your survey to people? 

    3. Interview  – Who do you want to interview? What detailed information do you want to gather from them? What would be the best medium to interview with? How would you transcribe the interview? 

  6. With your research question, create two example survey questions and two example interview questions using the criteria described in the chapter of “What Makes a Good Question.” How do these questions exemplify the criteria? 

Context

Rhetorical Strategies

Reflection

This reading guide created for the Rhetorical Toolbox OER source gives students an introduction to the basics of primary research. The main takeaways of this chapter needed to be addressed for students within the reading guides (such as the ethics of primary research through informed consent, the importance of planning, narrowly defining your topic, etc) given that they are necessary components to conducting research in the most ethical, efficient and authentic way possible.

 

Therefore, some of the questions revolved around identifying the proper situations to utilize a survey versus an interview, in addition to looking at examples of good and bad research questions (and how to form them yourself). Survey questions will yield more quantitative data, while interviews will yield more qualitative data. The goal of these types of questions was for students to hopefully identify which findings will suit their research best. Overall, I feel as though these questions hit the main points of the chapter. I used the same method of the Blooms Taxonomy, (the hierarchal structure of questions from a more “active recall” type for memory, all the way to evaluative, where students produce their own work).

 

When I had my weekly meeting with Dr. Mayanrd about this guide, I remember walking in without a “create” question to fill the top of the Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid. We worked together to examine my existing questions, and expanded further upon the idea of a students personal research question, and asked them to create their own survey for the last question. Developing these skills will assist students in enhancing their own rhetorical skills by identifying parts of the rhetorical triangle (audience, context and purpose) in their own research. Given the experience I have with primary research through courses like Writing as Inquiry and my Senior Capstone course, I felt as though the most essential points were touched on for students.

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