MY RESEARCH IDENTITY: A REFLECTION
I find my personal identity as a researcher to be defined by my human-centric approach. Personally, I find most of my own research somewhat incomplete without a return to form by using surveys and personal interviews to see how it relates to the everyday person. After all, I think that's what research is all about anyways. What's the point of doing it if it affects nobody? In most of my research projects, I take on the role of not just a scholar, but also a reporter. When my work focuses on humans, and thus human problems, I find it awfully impersonal to only take into account what other scholars before me have said about the problems people face. That is why I find it to be much more useful to collect the data myself. I also find the process of collecting info itself to be very enjoyable, as I love talking to people and getting to know them better. Through facilitated discussion I think I can get a much broader view of who it is that I want to learn about. ...