Learning New Information: Effective Research

Today we had a group meeting, in which our college librarian, Diana, showed us some different websites and tricks into optimising our research, all by what we type into different search engines. As a result of this, I decided to try it out.

1) InfoTrac

Infotrac, one of many information/article websites, allows you to search for news articles that may be relevant to your research. By using the advanced search, you are able to narrow down the articles to find what you want.

Infotrac is a collection of many news articles from a variety of newspapers. By using the advanced search, typing in key words and phrases that are relevant to the research, you can find articles relating or including the information you hope to find.





The main result being an array of articles on the screen. Even though for my results there are many articles that aren't relevant, by looking through the list I can hopefully find something, even if small, to help me with my project.



2) JSTOR

 Similar to Infotrac, JSTOR is a website that allows you to access articles, books and journals on a chosen topic. It also has an advanced search feature to get specific information.






With JSTOR, you can also choose a specific language, as well as the option to refine the type of text you find, as well as being able to choose a subject eg psychology.




After doing multiple attempts at an advanced search, I found some very useful articles about my topic, even if it did take me some scanning and reading.






3) Google (Advanced Search // Scholar)

We were then told how to use google the right way. Firstly using the advanced search instead of normal search, as it means we can narrow the results down from 100's of millions to a few thousand.
You can also select words you don't want in your search, which I personally found very helpful as music/art related results would come up otherwise.



Personally, I found google (advanced search) very helpful, as it got me many more results than both JSTOR and infotrac, results of which were also more specific to my topic.

As well as this, we were reminded of Google Scholar, where you can find research papers on your chosen topic. However, you can only freely access the ones with HTML/PDF's on the side which does limit your availability, however I still found a good range of material, including ones for specific sports which I may want to talk about in my report.

The Start of My Research

When clarifying my question, my supervisor mentioned that for my experiment I could use 'Cortisol Strips' to measure a persons levels of anxiety and stress.

So I started my research there. I found out that you can get these strips for a good price on many websites, and research into this also brought me to past research to do with my question, meaning as well as establishing an idea for a possible experiment, I also have past research to include in my research.

I am also finding Google Scholar a very helpful tool in my research, as it allows me to find trusted articles that have been published about my topic. As I am starting to get the basics to do with the how anxiety effects performance and how to manage it, I will soon know some aspects I may want to email or interview professionals in the industry about, and hopefully consolidate my knowledge.

Forming a Question: Sessions 1+2 with my Supervisor

I had my first meeting with my Supervisor on June the 18th. Going into the meeting, I had a very broad idea of what I would liked to have based my question on, however didn't have specific ideas mainly due to the reason that even though Sports Psychology is a subject I'm extremely interested about, the only idea's I had were to do with information I've already learnt and therefore couldn't and didn't want to base my question on.

As a result of this, our meeting was pretty short, and  I was given a textbook to look through, as well as the use of Google Scholar at my disposal to try and get a list of ideas of anything we could work with to form a question.

I researched for a few hours at least, reading different articles and textbook chapters, and wrote down around 10 ideas I could do for my project, many of them linked in some way. I then narrowed my options down to 4 ideas that I really loved:

• 'the effects of psychological factors on our sporting performance'
• 'the preferred leadership/coaching styles of different groups of performers'
• 'the effects of psychological factors on learning a new skill'
• 'the effects of stress/anxiety on our sporting performance and ways to manage it'

I then completed a SWOT analysis of 3 of these ideas (as idea 1 and 3 are so similar I mixed them together) and then went into my next meeting with knowledge of the 4 ideas in better detail.

During my second meeting with my supervisor, we both agreed on the question 'The Effects of Stress/Anxiety on Sporting Performance and Ways To Manage It' as we believed it would be very interesting and make for a detailed and fun project, especially as I could not only use secondary research, I could also conduct my own primary research in the form of an experiment.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT (strengths/weaknesses/opportunity/threats) Analysis of My 3 Final Ideas.

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// Idea 1 //

"To what extent do psychological factors/individual differences effect our sporting ability"

Strengths: 

- A topic I've always been interested in studying and knowing more about

- There's a lot of official research into the question

- I'd be motivated to research and carry out my EPQ to its fullest ability if i chose this question due to my interest in the topic.

- I can pick out relevant research easily therefore I can efficiently find information for my project
 

Weaknesses: 

- I might not be able to fully research every aspect of the question that I would like due to my other subjects and outside commitments (eg work / sports clubs)

- Some aspects have more information than others, so some parts of my qualification may be stronger than others

Opportunity:

- Project will allow me to develop my research and essay writing skills

- I can research something I really enjoy which will end in a project I will be proud of

- As a subject I want to do at university, it will help me start to both get skills for overall research and get an insight into the course I want to do.

Threats:

- Psychological Factors is a very broad idea, I would need to try get a range of different factors in my project to cover the range. 

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// Idea 2 //
 

"An Investigation into Preferred Leadership Style of Different Groups of Performers"

Strengths: 

- The analysis seems immersive and something that I will enjoy finding more about

- There's a good amount of official research into the question that is easy to talk about.

 

Weaknesses: 

- I might not be able to fully research every aspect of the question that I would like due to my other subjects and outside commitments (eg work / sports clubs)

- Not as much official research into this as my first idea which may impact 65% of my EPQ

Opportunity:

- Project will allow me to develop my research and essay writing skills

- As a subject I want to do at university, it will help me start to both get skills for overall research and get an insight into the course I want to do.
-It's also a subject I don't know much about, so I could get to learn afresh.

Threats:

- Groups of Performers is a very broad and vague idea, I would need to try get a range of different factors in my project to cover the range, and choose the most popular 'groups' which will have the most research behind it.

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// Idea 3 //


"How and why does anxiety inhibit sporting performance and what's the best way of managing it?"

Strengths: 

- I can pick out relevant research easily therefore I can efficiently find information for my project

- Once again, there is a good range of official research into the question
 

Weaknesses: 

- I might not be able to fully research every aspect of the question that I would like due to my other subjects and outside commitments (eg work / sports clubs)

-The question is split into two parts and I may not be able to efficiently research one part due to time or motivation

Opportunity:

- Project will allow me to develop my research and essay writing skills

- As a subject I want to do at university, it will help me start to both get skills for overall research and get an insight into the course I want to do.

Threats:

-The idea could be to broad, as many pieces of research are about a specific sport not sport as a whole.