This assignment and this course in general have completely
overhauled the way in which I view information. To know something to be true
and valid is actually an exhaustive journey, and if I were inclined to or asked
to do so in the future I would certainly take the route of scholarly research,
as we’ve learned in this course. I believe I’ve gained the tools necessary to
do this again in the future. I understand now that this course was laid out in
a certain way to introduce us to different types of resources at a pace that is
conducive to learning, but in the future I think I would gather resources of
all types in one sitting and begin to digest the state of the issue at hand.
Probably the most difficult task of gathering these
resources is understanding what the authors are trying to say through technical
terms and professional jargon. The language can be cryptic and dense, but I
think the process of “translating” information would become easier over time
and during further exposure to the field that is my major.
After having completed the literature review, I can safely
say I have a working knowledge of journal articles and other resource and how
they interact with each other in a review. The authors of the resources don’t know
they’re being compared against one and other, but they tend to share a
foundation of knowledge of the material they’re researching. For this reason it’s
easier to see what most researchers agree on and the areas in which there isn’t
much in the way of completely understanding. The authors have the same issues
in regard to the lack of knowledge, but they are each attempting to answer
different questions. One can gain a sense of what is on the horizon for future
research by taking a survey of sorts across multiple studies.
As I outlined in my literature review, the most obvious
issue with my topic is in regard to structured reporting and evaluation of
variables. I’m not a student of hard sciences, but I know that scientists in
those fields deal in concrete numbers that are quantitative, not qualitative.
Mindfulness and psychology in general struggle to do the same, as the nature of
research is usually qualitative. Perhaps in my education I will learn to
reconcile and maybe even put to rest any complaint I have of this disparity.
