improving online research skills

What are Research Skills? How to Improve Your Skills in Research

Learn strategies and techniques to improve your research skills. Avoid common mistakes and implement proven methods for efficient research. This article offers practical tips to enhance your ability to find and evaluate high-quality information.

Are you struggling to find relevant and reliable information for your research? Do you want to avoid getting lost in a sea of sources and needing help knowing where to start? Improving your research skills is essential for academic success and professional growth.

In today's information age, effectively conducting research has become more important than ever. Whether you are a student, a professional, or simply someone who wants to stay informed, knowing how to find and evaluate information is crucial.

Fortunately, some strategies and techniques can help you improve your research skills and become a more efficient and effective researcher. By avoiding common mistakes and implementing proven methods, you can enhance your ability to find high-quality information and make the most of your research endeavors. This article will explore some practical tips and tricks to help you improve your research skills and achieve better results.

What is Research?

Research is a critical part of learning, problem-solving, and decision-making. It is an essential process used in every field for both the individual and collective’s mutual benefit and success. Research involves systematically gathering data from primary or secondary sources, analyzing it, interpreting it, and communicating its findings to researchers and other interested parties.

Research can be divided into two main categories: quantitative research, which uses numerical data to describe phenomena, and qualitative research, which seeks to understand people's beliefs, opinions, values, or behaviors. Quantitative research often involves applying model-based approaches that can predict outcomes based on observations. It is one of the most powerful methods of discovering information about the world, as it allows for testing hypotheses in a systematic manner. Qualitative research is more exploratory in nature by focusing on understanding the motivations behind what people do or think rather than developing models or producing statistics in order to conclude behavior and relationships between variables. This type of research usually relies more on observation and engagement with people instead of using statistical models.

What are Research Skills?

Research skills are the abilities and talents required to focus on an objective, gather the relevant data linked to it, analyze it using appropriate methods, and accurately communicate the results. Taking part in research indicates that you have acquired knowledge of your subject matter, have digested that knowledge, and processed, evaluated, and analyzed it until you can resolve a problem or answer a query. It is highly beneficial for employers to hire people with strong research skills since they can provide valuable insights and add value to the company’s performance. Therefore, researching effectively has become crucial to securing a job in most industries.

Why Do Research Skills Matter?

Research skills are essential if one intends to succeed in today's competitive world. With technology ever-evolving and a need to stay ahead of the competition, employees who possess research skills can prove invaluable to their employers. These skills include researching, analyzing, and interpreting data and making informed decisions based on that information.

Employers value workers who can quickly develop a thorough understanding of any changes or trends in their field of work through accurate research. Knowing how to assess customer needs, recognize competition, write reports, improve productivity, and advise on investments can also benefit any business. With the help of research skills, companies can uncover ways to adapt their services or products that better serve their customers’ needs while helping them save money at the same time. This makes overall operations more efficient as well as helps a company remain ahead of its competitors.

Essential Research Skills :

Here is a list of essential research skills:

Data Collection

Data collection is an important part of comprehending a certain topic and ensuring reliable information is collected while striving to answer complex questions. Every situation differs, but data collection typically includes surveys, interviews, observations, and existing document reviews. The data collected can be quantitative or qualitative, depending on the nature of the problem at hand. As students advance through university and other educational institutions, they will need to read extensively into a particular field and may even need to undertake comprehensive literature reviews to answer fundamental questions.

The skills acquired through data collection during university are invaluable for future roles and jobs. Gaining experience in understanding complex topics, reading widely on a given subject matter, collecting relevant data, and analyzing findings - all these activities are integral when dealing with any type of project within the corporate sector. Therefore, embarking on various research projects enhances a person's education level and brings about significant professional experience.

Goal-Setting

Setting goals is an important skill for any successful research project. It allows you to stay focused and motivated throughout the process. Goals are also essential in helping with direction: they provide a path to organize our thoughts, narrow our focus, and prioritize the tasks we need to undertake to achieve our desired result. The concept of goal-setting is inherent in most research processes, as everything needs to have something to strive for — whether that’s gaining knowledge about a particular topic or testing a theory.

When it comes to creating and setting goals during the research process, you must have clear and specific objectives in mind from the outset. Writing down your thoughts helps define these objectives, which can inform the data collection process; moreover, thinking about short-term and long-term goals can help you create manageable steps toward achieving them. Learning how to break up larger projects into smaller “mini-goals effectively” can make all the difference when tackling complex investigations — allowing researchers to monitor their progress more easily and culminate results further down the line.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is an integral part of the modern workplace. To succeed, one must be able to look at a situation objectively and make decisions based on evidence. The information examined needs to come from various sources, such as data collection, personal observation, or analysis. The goal should then be to take all this information and form a logical judgment that informs an action plan or idea.

Someone who displays strong critical thinking skills will not just accept proposed ideas at face value but instead can understand how these ideas can be applied and challenged. Accepting something without consideration means making the wrong decision due to a lack of thought. Critical thinkers understand how brainstorming works, assessing all elements before forming any decision. From negotiating with colleagues or customers in adversarial scenarios to analyzing complex documents such as legal contracts in order to review business agreements - critical dedicated apply their knowledge effectively and are able to back up their evaluation with evidence collected from multiple sources.

Observation Skills

Observation skills are necessary for conducting any form of research, whether it be in the workplace or as part of an investigative process. It is important to be able to pick up on the details that might otherwise pass unnoticed, such as inconsistencies in data or irregularities in how something is presented, and to pay careful attention to regulations and procedures that govern the company or environment. This can help researchers to ensure their processes are accurate and reliable.

As well as analyzing what we see around us directly, many research methodologies often involve calculated statistical analyses and calculations. For this reason, it’s important to develop strong observation skills so that the legitimacy of information can be confirmed and checked before conclusions are formed. Improving this skill requires dedication and practice, which could include keeping a journal reflecting on experiences, posing yourself questions about what you have observed, and seeking out opportunities in unfamiliar settings to test your observations.

Detail Orientation

Detail orientation is an important research skill for any scientific endeavor. It allows one to assess a situation or problem in minute detail and make appropriate judgments based on the information gathered. A detail-oriented thinker can easily spot errors, inconsistencies, and vital pieces of evidence, which can help lead to accurate conclusions from the research. Additionally, this skill allows someone to evaluate the quality and accuracy of data recorded during an experiment or project more efficiently to ensure validity.

Spotting small mistakes that may otherwise have been overlooked is a crucial part of conducting detailed research that must be perfected. Individuals aiming for superior outcomes should strive to develop their skill at detecting details by practicing critical analysis techniques, such as breaking down large bodies of information into smaller tasks to identify finer points quickly. Moreover, encouragement should also be made for elaborate comparison and analysis between different pieces of information when solving a complex problem, as it can help provide better insights into problems accurately.

Investigative Skills

Investigative skills are an essential component when it comes to gathering and analyzing data. In a professional setting, it is important to determine the accuracy and validity of different sources of information before making any decisions or articulating ideas. Generally, effective investigation requires collecting different sets of reliable data, such as surveys and interviews with stakeholders, employees, customers, etc. For example, if a company internally assesses possible challenges within its business operations environment, it would need to conduct more profound research involving talking to relevant stakeholders who could provide critical perspectives about the situation.

Data-gathering techniques such as comparison shopping and regulatory reviews have become more commonplace in the industry as people strive for greater transparency and more accurate results. Knowing how to identify reliable sources of information can give individuals a competitive advantage and allow them to make sound decisions based on accurate data. Investing time in learning different investigative skills can help recruiters spot applicants dedicated to acquiring knowledge in this field. Developing these investigative skills is also valuable for those looking for executive positions or starting their own business. By familiarizing themselves with their application process, people can become adept at collecting high-quality data they may use in their research endeavors.

Time Management

Time management is a key skill for any researcher. It's essential to be able to allocate time between different activities so you can effectively plan and structure your research projects. Without good time management, you may find yourself hastily completing tasks or feeling stressed out as you rush to complete an analysis. Ultimately, managing your time allows you to stay productive and ensure that each project is completed with the highest results.

Good time management requires various skills such as planning ahead, prioritizing tasks, breaking down large projects into smaller steps, and even delegating some activities when possible. It also means setting realistic goals for yourself in terms of the amount of research that can be achieved in certain timestamps and learning how to adjust these goals when needed. Becoming mindful of how you spend the same hours each day will propel your productivity and see positive results from your efforts. Time management becomes especially relevant regarding data collection and analysis – it is crucial to understand precisely what kind of resources are needed for each task before diving into the research itself. Knowing how much time should be dedicated to each step is essential for meeting deadlines while still retaining accuracy in the final outcomes of one’s study.

Tips on How to Improve Your Research Skills

Below are some tips that can help in improving your skills in research:

Initiate your project with a structured outline

When embarking on any research project, creating an outline and scope document must first ensure that you remain on the right track. An outline sets expectations for your project by forming a detailed strategy for researching the topic and gathering the necessary data to conclude. It will help you stay organized and break down large projects into more manageable parts. This can help prevent procrastination as each part of the project has its own timeline, making it easier to prioritize tasks accordingly.

Using an outline and scope document also allows for better structure when conducting research or interviews, as it guides which sources are most relevant, what questions need to be answered, and how information should be collected or presented. This ensures that all information received through research or interviews stays within the confines of the chosen topic of investigation. Additionally, it ensures that no important details are overlooked while minimizing the chance that extraneous information gets included in your results. Taking this time upfront prevents potential problems during analysis or reporting of findings later.

Acquire expertise in advanced data collection methods

When it comes to collecting data for research purposes, a range of advanced data collection techniques can be used to maximize your efficiency and accuracy. One such technique is customizing your online search results with advanced search settings. By adding quotation marks and wildcard characters to the terms you are searching for, you are more likely to find the information you need from reliable sources. This can be especially useful if, for instance, you are looking for exact quotes or phrases. Different search engines require different advanced techniques and tactics, so learning these can help you get more specific results from your research endeavors.

Aside from using online searches, another standard methodology when conducting research is accessing primary information through libraries or other public sources. A specific classification system will likely be in place that can help researchers locate the materials needed quickly and easily. Knowing and understanding this system allows one to access information much more efficiently while also giving them ample opportunity to increase their knowledge of various topics by browsing related content in the same category groups. Thus, by learning about advanced data collection techniques for both online and offline sources, researchers can make substantial progress in their studies more efficiently.

Validate and examine the reliability of your data sources

Collecting reliable information for research can be a challenge, especially when relying on online sources. It is essential to remember that not all sources are created equal, and some sites may contain false or inaccurate data. It is, therefore important to verify and analyze the data before using it as part of your research.

One way to start verifying and analyzing your sources is to cross-reference material from one source with another. This may help you determine if particular facts or claims are accurate and, therefore, more valid than others. Additionally, trace where the data is coming from by looking at the author or organization behind it so that you can assess their expertise in a particular field and authority on the topic at hand. Once these steps have been completed, you can confidently use this trusted information for your project.

Structure your research materials

Organizing your research materials is an integral part of any research process. When you’re conducting a project or study and trying to find the most relevant information, you can become overwhelmed with all the data available. It’s important to separate valid from invalid materials and to categorize research materials by subject for easy access later on. Bookmarking websites on a computer or using a digital asset management tool are two effective methods for organizing research information.

When researching, it’s critical to remember that some sources have limited value and may be outside the scope of your topic. Recognizing reliable material versus trustworthy resources can be complex in this sea of information. However, sorting data into appropriate categories can help narrow down what is necessary for producing valid conclusions. This method of classifying information helps ensure that vital documents aren't overlooked during the organization process as they are placed in folders shortcutted for quick access within one centralized source whenever needed. Separating valuable sources also makes it easier to reference later on when writing reports or giving presentations - material won't get lost among irrelevant data, and conclusions will be backed by sound evidence.

Enhance your research and communication capabilities

Developing research and communication skills is essential for succeeding academically and professionally in the modern world. The key to improving these skills lies in rigorous practice, which can begin with small projects such as resolving common issues or completing a research task that can be made into a personal project. One way to do this is to volunteer for research projects at work and gain experience under the guidance of experienced researchers. This will improve your research skills and help you develop communication skills when working with others on the project. Another option is to turn a personal project into a research task. For example, if you plan on taking a holiday soon, you could create an objective method to select the best destination by conducting online research on destinations and making informed decisions based on thorough analysis. Practicing in this way enables you to complete any research task confidently and communicate efficiently with ease.

How to Articulate Research Skills on Your Resume

Research projects require commitment and perseverance, making it an important skill to include on a resume. Even if you have had limited research experience throughout your education or previous job, including this in your resume assesses these qualities to potential employers. It's important to consider the extent of your research experience when deciding how to add this part of your background to your resume. If you have been involved with multiple in-depth research projects, it might be best to highlight this by including it as its own section. On the other hand, if the amount of research you have completed is more limited, then try including it in the skills section instead.

When adding research experience and accomplishments into either section of your resume, be sure to emphasize any specific roles or contributions you made during the process instead of just describing the project itself. Furthermore, remember to quantify any successes where possible - this showcases both communication and technical proficiency strengths, which can help make your resume stand out even more. By properly articulating research skills within a resume, employers will likely be more interested in what job seekers have accomplished in their careers.

How to Apply Research Skills Effectively in Your Workplace

Research skills are an invaluable set of abilities to bring to your workplace. To make sure you use them properly, a good place to start is by taking time to plan the project you have been assigned. Whether it’s writing a report or analyzing data, mapping out what tasks you need to do and how long they should take helps to understand the project timeline better. This also makes setting aside dedicated time for research easier too.

To ensure that the decisions made are sound and informed, reading up on the subject area related to the project remains one of the premier ways of doing this. This will help to ensure that any problems arising can be solved quickly and effectively, as well as provide answers before any decisions are actually put into practice. By arming yourself with knowledge gathered through reading about a particular topic, it can give you more confidence when formulating plans or strategies in which direction to take your work in.

Final Thoughts

Research skills are increasingly important in the modern world, and gaining proficiency in this area can significantly benefit a person's career. Research skills are essential for success in many different roles and fields, including those within business and industry, education, science, and medicine. Developing a deep understanding of research allows us to identify problems better and critically evaluate potential solutions. It also bolsters our problem-solving abilities as we work to find creative solutions that meet our efforts' objectives.

By improving your research capabilities, you can impress employers during an application process or when joining a team at work. Research skills are considered soft skills by potential employers since they signal that you have attention to detail while simultaneously demonstrating your ability to learn new things quickly. Employers regard these skills highly, making them one of the key graduate career skills recruiters seek. Furthermore, being able to add ‘research skills’ to your CV will be looked upon favorably by employers and help drive up your employability significantly. Demonstrating that you possess these sought-after traits makes it easier for recruiters to give you the opportunity you've been looking for, so it's worth investing the time into developing these life-long learning tools today.

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The Best Research Skills For Success

Updated: December 8, 2023

Published: January 5, 2020

Every student is required to conduct research in their academic careers at one point or another. A good research paper not only requires a great deal of time, but it also requires complex skills. Research skills include the ability to organize, evaluate, locate, and extract relevant information.

Let’s learn how to develop great research skills for academic success.

What is Research?

We’ve all surely heard the term “research” endlessly. But do you really know what it means?

Research is a type of study that focuses on a specific problem and aims to solve it using scientific methods. Research is a highly systematic process that involves both describing, explaining, and predicting something.

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What are research skills.

Research skills are what helps us answer our most burning questions, and they are what assist us in our solving process from A to Z, including searching, finding, collecting, breaking down, and evaluating the relevant information to the phenomenon at hand.

Research is the basis of everything we know — and without it, we’re not sure where we would be today! For starters, without the internet and without cars, that’s for sure.

Why are Research Skills Important?

Research skills come in handy in pretty much everything we do, and especially so when it comes to the workforce. Employers will want to hire you and compensate you better if you demonstrate a knowledge of research skills that can benefit their company.

From knowing how to write reports, how to notice competition, develop new products, identify customer needs, constantly learn new technologies, and improve the company’s productivity, there’s no doubt that research skills are of utter importance. Research also can save a company a great deal of money by first assessing whether making an investment is really worthwhile for them.

How to Get Research Skills

Now that you’re fully convinced about the importance of research skills, you’re surely going to want to know how to get them. And you’ll be delighted to hear that it’s really not so complicated! There are plenty of simple methods out there to gain research skills such as the internet as the most obvious tool.

Gaining new research skills however is not limited to just the internet. There are tons of books, such as Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, journals, articles, studies, interviews and much, much more out there that can teach you how to best conduct your research.

Utilizing Research Skills

Now that you’ve got all the tools you need to get started, let’s utilize these research skills to the fullest. These skills can be used in more ways than you know. Your research skills can be shown off either in interviews that you’re conducting or even in front of the company you’re hoping to get hired at .

It’s also useful to add your list of research skills to your resume, especially if it’s a research-based job that requires skills such as collecting data or writing research-based reports. Many jobs require critical thinking as well as planning ahead.

Career Paths that Require Research Skills

If you’re wondering which jobs actually require these research skills, they are actually needed in a variety of industries. Some examples of the types of work that require a great deal of research skills include any position related to marketing, science , history, report writing, and even the food industry.

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How students can improve research skills.

Perhaps you know what you have to do, but sometimes, knowing how to do it can be more of a challenge. So how can you as a student improve your research skills ?

1. Define your research according to the assignment

By defining your research and understanding how it relates to the specific field of study, it can give more context to the situation.

2. Break down the assignment

The most difficult part of the research process is actually just getting started. By breaking down your research into realistic and achievable parts, it can help you achieve your goals and stay systematic.

3. Evaluate your sources

While there are endless sources out there, it’s important to always evaluate your sources and make sure that they are reliable, based on a variety of factors such as their accuracy and if they are biased, especially if used for research purposes.

4. Avoid plagiarism

Plagiarism is a major issue when it comes to research, and is often misunderstood by students. IAs a student, it’s important that you understand what plagiarism really means, and if you are unclear, be sure to ask your teachers.

5. Consult and collaborate with a librarian

A librarian is always a good person to have around, especially when it comes to research. Most students don’t seek help from their school librarian, however, this person tends to be someone with a vast amount of knowledge when it comes to research skills and where to look for reliable sources.

6. Use library databases

There are tons of online library resources that don’t require approaching anyone. These databases are generally loaded with useful information that has something for every student’s specific needs.

7. Practice effective reading

It’s highly beneficial to practice effective reading, and there are no shortage of ways to do it. One effective way to improve your research skills it to ask yourself questions using a variety of perspectives, putting yourself in the mind of someone else and trying to see things from their point of view.

There are many critical reading strategies that can be useful, such as making summaries from annotations, and highlighting important passages.

Thesis definition

A thesis is a specific theory or statement that is to be either proved or maintained. Generally, the intentions of a thesis are stated, and then throughout, the conclusions are proven to the reader through research. A thesis is crucial for research because it is the basis of what we are trying to prove, and what guides us through our writing.

What Skills Do You Need To Be A Researcher?

One of the most important skills needed for research is independence, meaning that you are capable of managing your own work and time without someone looking over you.

Critical thinking, problem solving, taking initiative, and overall knowing how to work professionally in front of your peers are all crucial for effectively conducting research .

1. Fact check your sources

Knowing how to evaluate information in your sources and determine whether or not it’s accurate, valid or appropriate for the specific purpose is a first on the list of research skills.

2. Ask the right questions

Having the ability to ask the right questions will get you better search results and more specific answers to narrow down your research and make it more concise.

3. Dig deeper: Analyzing

Don’t just go for the first source you find that seems reliable. Always dig further to broaden your knowledge and make sure your research is as thorough as possible.

4. Give credit

Respect the rights of others and avoid plagiarizing by always properly citing your research sources.

5. Utilize tools

There are endless tools out there, such as useful websites, books, online videos, and even on-campus professionals such as librarians that can help. Use all the many social media networks out there to both gain and share more information for your research.

6. Summarizing

Summarizing plays a huge role in research, and once the data is collected, relevant information needs to be arranged accordingly. Otherwise it can be incredibly overwhelming.

7. Categorizing

Not only does information need to be summarized, but also arranged into categories that can help us organize our thoughts and break down our materials and sources of information.

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What are different types of research, 1. qualitative.

This type of research is exploratory research and its aim is to obtain a better understanding of reasons for things. Qualitative research helps form an idea without any specific fixed pattern. Some examples include face-to-face interviews or group discussions.

2. Quantitative

Quantitative research is based on numbers and statistics. This type of research uses data to prove facts, and is generally taken from a large group of people.

3. Analytical

Analytical research has to always be done from a neutral point of view, and the researcher is intended to break down all perspectives. This type of research involves collecting information from a wide variety of sources.

4. Persuasive

Persuasive research describes an issue from two different perspectives, going through both the pros and cons of both, and then aims to prove their preference towards one side by exploring a variety of logical facts.

5. Cause & Effect

In this type of research, the cause and effects are first presented, and then a conclusion is made. Cause and effect research is for those who are new in the field of research and is mostly conducted by high school or college students.

6. Experimental Research

Experimental research involves very specific steps that must be followed, starting by conducting an experiment. It is then followed by sharing an experience and providing data about it. This research is concluded with data in a highly detailed manner.

7. Survey Research

Survey research includes conducting a survey by asking participants specific questions, and then analyzing those findings. From that, researchers can then draw a conclusion.

8. Problem-Solution Research

Both students and scholars alike carry out this type of research, and it involves solving problems by analyzing the situation and finding the perfect solution to it.

What it Takes to Become a Researcher

• Critical thinking

Research is most valuable when something new is put on the table. Critical thinking is needed to bring something unique to our knowledge and conduct research successfully.

• Analytical thinking

Analytical thinking is one of the most important research skills and requires a great deal of practice. Such a skill can assist researchers in taking apart and understanding a large amount of important information in a short amount of time.

• Explanation skills

When it comes to research skills, it’s not just about finding information, but also about how you explain it. It’s more than just writing it out, but rather, knowing how to clearly and concisely explain your new ideas.

• Patience is key

Just like with anything in life, patience will always take you far. It might be difficult to come by, but by not rushing things and investing the time needed to conduct research properly, your work is bound for success.

• Time management

Time is the most important asset that we have, and it can never be returned back to us. By learning time management skills , we can utilize our time in the best way possible and make sure to always be productive in our research.

What You Need to Sharpen Your Research Skills

Research is one of the most important tasks that students are given in college, and in many cases, it’s almost half of the academic grade that one is given.

As we’ve seen, there are plenty of things that you’ll need to sharpen your research skills — which mainly include knowing how to choose reliable and relevant sources, and knowing how to take them and make it your own. It’s important to always ask the right questions and dig deeper to make sure that you understood the full picture.

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The 6 Online Research Skills Your Students Need

1. Check Your Sources

The Skill:  Evaluating information found in your sources based on accuracy, validity, appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and cultural context.

The Challenge:  While most kids know not to believe everything they read online, the majority also don’t take the time to fully evaluate their sources, according to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The same study showed that, on average, kids as young as 11 rate themselves as quite proficient Internet users, which may inflate their confidence.

The Solution:  As a class, discuss the benchmarks for evaluating a website: currency (Is the information up to date?), security (Does the site ask for too much personal information or prompt virus warnings?), scope (Is the knowledge in-depth?), and authority (Does the information come from a trusted expert?). Challenge partners to find one site that meets these benchmarks and one that fails to do so. During research projects, encourage students to check the standards off a list for each source they use.

2. Ask Good Questions

The Skills:  Developing and refining search queries to get better research results

The Challenge:  Students will enter a search term, say, “Abraham Lincoln,” and comb through pages of results that aren’t related to their research (think Lincoln beards, Lincoln Logs), rather than narrowing their original query (“Lincoln assassination”).

The Solution:  Give small groups three search terms each, ranging from the general to the specific (e.g., “national parks,” “Yellowstone,” and “Yellowstone founding date”). Ask the groups to record how many results are returned for each term. Discuss how specificity can narrow their search to the results they need. Next, challenge groups to develop three alternate search terms for the most specific item on their lists. (For the Yellowstone example, alternate terms might include “When was Yellowstone founded?” “history of Yellowstone” and “Who founded Yellowstone?”) Compare the results and discuss how changing a few words can generate different information.

3. Go Beyond the Surface

The Skill:  Displaying persistence by continuing to pursue information to gain a broad perspective

The Challenge:  Studies have shown that kids often stop at the first search result when using a search engine that they deem the most trustworthy.

The Solution:  Invite students to create fact trees about whatever they are researching. The starting question is the root of the tree — for example, “How many planets are in the Milky Way?” Then, on branches coming out from the tree, students write facts or pieces of information that answer the question (“Scientists don’t know the exact number,” “There could be billions”). The catch is that each fact must come from a separate, documented source. Encourage students to find at least 10 sources of information to complete their fact trees.

4. Be Patient

The Skill:  Displaying emotional resilience by persisting in information searching despite challenges

The Challenge:  Today’s students are used to information on demand. So when they can’t find the answers to their questions after they’ve spent a few minutes poking around online, they may grow frustrated and throw in the towel.

The Solution:  Challenge teams to develop a well-researched answer to a question that isn’t “Google-able.” Opinion questions about popular culture work well for this activity. For example, “Who’s the best actor ever to have played James Bond?” “Which brand is better: the Jonas Brothers or Justin Bieber?” Encourage teams to use various sources to answer their questions, including what others have said, box office receipts, and awards. Determine a winner based on which team presents the most convincing case.

5. Respect Ownership

The Skill:  Respecting intellectual property rights of creators and producers

The Challenge:  Increasingly, young people don’t see piracy as stealing. One survey found that 86 percent of teens felt music piracy was “morally acceptable.”

The Solution:  Make it personal. Invite students to write about what it would feel like to get a record deal, star in a movie, or publish a book. As a class, discuss the emotions involved. Then introduce the idea of piracy. Ask, “How would you feel if someone downloaded your music, movie, or book without paying for it?” You might also talk about how it would feel not to get paid for other types of work, such as working in an office or a school. How is piracy similar? How is it different?

6. Use Your Networks

The Skill:  Using social networks and information tools to gather and share information

The Challenge:  Some kids don’t understand the line between sharing information and plagiarizing it. A survey by plagiarism-prevention firm Turnitin found that the most widely used sources for cribbed material are sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Ask.com.

The Solution:  Talk to kids about when you might use social sites for research. Provide a list of topics and have partners decide whether it would be a good idea to use these tools. Suggested topics: your family’s countries of origin, the life of Alexander the Great, and the events of September 11, 2001. What could members of your network contribute to each of these discussions? How wouldn’t they be helpful? How would you include information that friends and family share in your work?

Also, explain that Wikipedia must be evaluated like any other website. In particular, students should focus on the sources cited in a Wikipedia article and ensure these sources are legitimate. You might have small groups analyze all sources for one Wikipedia article for currency, authority, scope, and security. Emphasize that it’s usually better to go back to the source than to quote directly from Wikipedia.

RESEARCH: TECH AND THE TEEN BRAIN

• Multitasking Takes a Toll According to research at the University of Michigan, homework can take between 25 to 400 percent longer when teens take breaks to check e-mail and download music. They lose time not only to the interruptions but also because they must reorient themselves when they return to the material.  
• Sleep Is Getting Short Shrift Earlier this year, the National Sleep Foundation released a survey showing that the average teen sleeps just seven and a half hours a night, two hours less than recommended for healthy brain development. The culprits? Televisions, laptops, and cell phones in students’ bedrooms.  
• Inhibition Losing Ground Psychologists call the result of online anonymity “the disinhibition effect” because people of all ages share more than they would in real life. While this effect can lead to bullying, the good news is that there is also “benign disinhibition,” — such as gay teens finding online support.

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Empowering students to develop research skills

February 8, 2021

This post is republished from   Into Practice ,  a biweekly communication of Harvard’s  Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning

Terence D. Capellini, Richard B Wolf Associate Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology, empowers students to grow as researchers in his Building the Human Body course through a comprehensive, course-long collaborative project that works to understand the changes in the genome that make the human skeleton unique. For instance, of the many types of projects, some focus on the genetic basis of why human beings walk on two legs. This integrative “Evo-Devo” project demands high levels of understanding of biology and genetics that students gain in the first half of class, which is then applied hands-on in the second half of class. Students work in teams of 2-3 to collect their own morphology data by measuring skeletons at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and leverage statistics to understand patterns in their data. They then collect and analyze DNA sequences from humans and other animals to identify the DNA changes that may encode morphology. Throughout this course, students go from sometimes having “limited experience in genetics and/or morphology” to conducting their own independent research. This project culminates in a team presentation and a final research paper.

The benefits: Students develop the methodological skills required to collect and analyze morphological data. Using the UCSC Genome browser  and other tools, students sharpen their analytical skills to visualize genomics data and pinpoint meaningful genetic changes. Conducting this work in teams means students develop collaborative skills that model academic biology labs outside class, and some student projects have contributed to published papers in the field. “Every year, I have one student, if not two, join my lab to work on projects developed from class to try to get them published.”

“The beauty of this class is that the students are asking a question that’s never been asked before and they’re actually collecting data to get at an answer.”

The challenges:  Capellini observes that the most common challenge faced by students in the course is when “they have a really terrific question they want to explore, but the necessary background information is simply lacking. It is simply amazing how little we do know about human development, despite its hundreds of years of study.” Sometimes, for instance, students want to learn about the evolution, development, and genetics of a certain body part, but it is still somewhat a mystery to the field. In these cases, the teaching team (including co-instructor Dr. Neil Roach) tries to find datasets that are maximally relevant to the questions the students want to explore. Capellini also notes that the work in his class is demanding and hard, just by the nature of the work, but students “always step up and perform” and the teaching team does their best to “make it fun” and ensure they nurture students’ curiosities and questions.

Takeaways and best practices

• Incorporate previous students’ work into the course. Capellini intentionally discusses findings from previous student groups in lectures. “They’re developing real findings and we share that when we explain the project for the next groups.” Capellini also invites students to share their own progress and findings as part of class discussion, which helps them participate as independent researchers and receive feedback from their peers.
• Assign groups intentionally.  Maintaining flexibility allows the teaching team to be more responsive to students’ various needs and interests. Capellini will often place graduate students by themselves to enhance their workload and give them training directly relevant to their future thesis work. Undergraduates are able to self-select into groups or can be assigned based on shared interests. “If two people are enthusiastic about examining the knee, for instance, we’ll match them together.”
• Consider using multiple types of assessments.  Capellini notes that exams and quizzes are administered in the first half of the course and scaffolded so that students can practice the skills they need to successfully apply course material in the final project. “Lots of the initial examples are hypothetical,” he explains, even grounded in fiction and pop culture references, “but [students] have to eventually apply the skills they learned in addressing the hypothetical example to their own real example and the data they generate” for the Evo-Devo project. This is coupled with a paper and a presentation treated like a conference talk.

Bottom line:  Capellini’s top advice for professors looking to help their own students grow as researchers is to ensure research projects are designed with intentionality and fully integrated into the syllabus. “You can’t simply tack it on at the end,” he underscores. “If you want this research project to be a substantive learning opportunity, it has to happen from Day 1.” That includes carving out time in class for students to work on it and make the connections they need to conduct research. “Listen to your students and learn about them personally” so you can tap into what they’re excited about. Have some fun in the course, and they’ll be motivated to do the work.

• January 11, 2022
• Productivity

How to Improve Your Research Skills 2022

Great research makes great writing – no matter how perfect your writing skills may be, without the necessary research skills, the paper you write is nothing other than your imagination. That’s understandable. Research itself can be overwhelming. Whether it’s online or offline, millions of resources in which we can obtain information exist, and yet it’s difficult to depict where and how we can extract it. No worries – improving your research skills helps you build a solid foundation for your project, and further provide quality information throughout your writing. If you’re looking to improve your research, read along.

1. Begin with Broad Topics.

Most of the time, we confront papers where we have little to no prior knowledge regarding the topic. Clueless and hesitant, we find ourselves looping circles – struggling to decide where to begin. The easiest approach in beginning your research is by tackling broad topics regarding your paper. With your question or thesis in hand, write down all the related subjects that first come in mind. 

Start building that relationship with your subject, so that you become familiar and comfortable with the context when conducting your research in the later stages.

2. Get to Know the Topic.

As you’re surfing through your broad research, you should be reading and consuming information. Remember, you’re at the stage of trying to get to know about the topic. Don’t be careful with selection yet. Read and Consume – Get used to the information, stay updated and start building the foundational knowledge required to structure your writing. Having to understand the basic information before you begin your detailed research also helps with recognizing what elements are important, and valuable for your research.

Sometimes we get busy. Build a habit of saving and managing research so that you won’t feel lost and waste precious time in the future. That way you’ll know which sources you found interesting, and can access them whenever you need.

3. Conduct Detailed Research.

Now that you’ve built the structural bones of the knowledge, transitioning to specific topics that align appropriately with your paper shouldn’t be too difficult. Start searching for resources that provide valuable information that answer your questions. Detailed research can range from anything between detailed insight regarding your topic, as well as numeric data or visual evidence that can prove to be useful for your project. Remember, the sources you choose to use are also important – which leads us to the next step.

4. Use Quality, Reliable Sources.

It’s crucial to keep this in mind – research is used to provide persuasiveness in your writing. You need factual information that provides evidence for your statements, so that you can backup your assertions with reliable sources, to make your paper credible and convincing. In that sense, it’s absolutely essential that you utilize quality and reliable sources so that whoever is reading your paper is fully convinced about whatever statement you’re making. 

Finding the appropriate sources is a valuable skill in becoming a great researcher. There are great tools out there, including Google Scholar, or the library (both online and offline) provided by your school. But it’s also important to recognize what makes the specific source ‘appropriate’ for the context of information. If it’s definition, you may refer to the dictionary. If it’s for an argument proving that there is a need for something out there, you could provide a first-hand or second-hand survey, with charts and numeric evidence.

You can conduct a “Source Evaluation” in order to check if your sources are suitable. The Harvard Library has a great article regarding this, which can be read here.  

5. Don’t Rely on One Source.

Diversifying your research is an important element in making sure that the information you utilize is truly reliable. In fact, it’s an absolute necessity if you’re creating a paper that requires first-hand action or replication – whether it be a science experiment, business campaign for your company, or anything that needs confirmation and assertion of information so that nothing goes terribly wrong. 

Many sources, especially the internet (which is the most used channel for extracting information), consist of biased, inaccurate and falsified information. Readers who assess your paper truly need valuable and credible information from multiple sources in order to reassure that whatever evidence you’re providing for your thesis is in fact, true.

6. Keep Your Research Organized.

If you’re following all the steps above, you may feel overwhelmed by both the quantity and diversity of your research sources. Regardless, it’s still a great sign that you’re fully utilizing your research.  At times, the overflow of sources and information limits your ability to stay on track and structure your writing.

There are great tools out there that help you with this process, so that organizing your research is something that you shouldn’t weigh your concern over – Typed , Google’s Bookmark System , Zotero are the most popular among them all. You can read more about why it’s so important, as well as how you can achieve efficient organization of your research in our other articles.

Great Research Makes Great Writing.

Now that you’ve had a read about how you can enhance your research ability, writing your paper should be a breeze. Most of your papers or whatever you’re creating involve heavily around the information that you’ve gathered and learned. It’s a matter of how well you put it together – and that’s where your writing skills come in. 

Nonetheless, if you’re following the steps mentioned within this blog post, you’ll have an easier time in overcoming the initial barriers of writing a paper. Research integration will be a lot more effective in your creations – which is the key quality that makes a great, persuasive piece of writing.

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What are research skills?

Last updated

26 April 2023

Reviewed by

Broadly, it includes a range of talents required to:

Find useful information

Perform critical analysis

Form hypotheses

Solve problems

It also includes processes such as time management, communication, and reporting skills to achieve those ends.

Research requires a blend of conceptual and detail-oriented modes of thinking. It tests one's ability to transition between subjective motivations and objective assessments to ensure only correct data fits into a meaningfully useful framework.

As countless fields increasingly rely on data management and analysis, polishing your research skills is an important, near-universal way to improve your potential of getting hired and advancing in your career.

Make research less tedious

Dovetail streamlines research to help you uncover and share actionable insights

What are basic research skills?

Almost any research involves some proportion of the following fundamental skills:

Organization

Decision-making

Investigation and analysis

Creative thinking

What are primary research skills?

The following are some of the most universally important research skills that will help you in a wide range of positions:

Time management — From planning and organization to task prioritization and deadline management, time-management skills are highly in-demand workplace skills.

Problem-solving — Identifying issues, their causes, and key solutions are another essential suite of research skills.

Critical thinking — The ability to make connections between data points with clear reasoning is essential to navigate data and extract what's useful towards the original objective.

Communication — In any collaborative environment, team-building and active listening will help researchers convey findings more effectively through data summarizations and report writing.

What are the most important skills in research?

Detail-oriented procedures are essential to research, which allow researchers and their audience to probe deeper into a subject and make connections they otherwise may have missed with generic overviews.

Maintaining priorities is also essential so that details fit within an overarching strategy. Lastly, decision-making is crucial because that's the only way research is translated into meaningful action.

• Why are research skills important?

Good research skills are crucial to learning more about a subject, then using that knowledge to improve an organization's capabilities. Synthesizing that research and conveying it clearly is also important, as employees seek to share useful insights and inspire effective actions.

Effective research skills are essential for those seeking to:

Analyze their target market

Investigate industry trends

Identify customer needs

Detect obstacles

Find solutions to those obstacles

Develop new products or services

Develop new, adaptive ways to meet demands

Discover more efficient ways of acquiring or using resources

Why do we need research skills?

Businesses and individuals alike need research skills to clarify their role in the marketplace, which of course, requires clarity on the market in which they function in. High-quality research helps people stay better prepared for challenges by identifying key factors involved in their day-to-day operations, along with those that might play a significant role in future goals.

• Benefits of having research skills

Research skills increase the effectiveness of any role that's dependent on information. Both individually and organization-wide, good research simplifies what can otherwise be unwieldy amounts of data. It can help maintain order by organizing information and improving efficiency, both of which set the stage for improved revenue growth.

Those with highly effective research skills can help reveal both:

Opportunities for improvement

Brand-new or previously unseen opportunities

Research skills can then help identify how to best take advantage of available opportunities. With today's increasingly data-driven economy, it will also increase your potential of getting hired and help position organizations as thought leaders in their marketplace.

• Research skills examples

Being necessarily broad, research skills encompass many sub-categories of skillsets required to extrapolate meaning and direction from dense informational resources. Identifying, interpreting, and applying research are several such subcategories—but to be specific, workplaces of almost any type have some need of:

Searching for information

Attention to detail

Taking notes

Problem-solving

Communicating results

Time management

• How to improve your research skills

Whether your research goals are to learn more about a subject or enhance workflows, you can improve research skills with this failsafe, four-step strategy:

Make an outline, and set your intention(s)

Know your sources

Learn to use advanced search techniques

Practice, practice, practice (and don't be afraid to adjust your approach)

These steps could manifest themselves in many ways, but what's most important is that it results in measurable progress toward the original goals that compelled you to research a subject.

• Using research skills at work

Different research skills will be emphasized over others, depending on the nature of your trade. To use research most effectively, concentrate on improving research skills most relevant to your position—or, if working solo, the skills most likely have the strongest impact on your goals.

You might divide the necessary research skills into categories for short, medium, and long-term goals or according to each activity your position requires. That way, when a challenge arises in your workflow, it's clearer which specific research skill requires dedicated attention.

How can I learn research skills?

Learning research skills can be done with a simple three-point framework:

Clarify the objective — Before delving into potentially overwhelming amounts of data, take a moment to define the purpose of your research. If at any point you lose sight of the original objective, take another moment to ask how you could adjust your approach to better fit the original objective.

Scrutinize sources — Cross-reference data with other sources, paying close attention to each author's credentials and motivations.

Organize research — Establish and continually refine a data-organization system that works for you. This could be an index of resources or compiling data under different categories designed for easy access.

Which careers require research skills?

Especially in today's world, most careers require some, if not extensive, research. Developers, marketers, and others dealing in primarily digital properties especially require extensive research skills—but it's just as important in building and manufacturing industries, where research is crucial to construct products correctly and safely.

Engineering, legal, medical, and literally any other specialized field will require excellent research skills. Truly, almost any career path will involve some level of research skills; and even those requiring only minimal research skills will at least require research to find and compare open positions in the first place.

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Teaching Students Better Online Research Skills

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Sara Shaw, an elementary school teacher in Avon, Mass., realized she needed to teach online research skills several years ago when her students kept turning in projects riddled with misinformation. The flawed material often came from websites the students used. They took the information as fact, when it often was just someone’s personal opinion.

Ms. Shaw thinks teaching online research skills is even more critical than it was just a few years ago. More than ever, information is literally at the fingertips of students through smartphones, tablet computers, and other digital devices.

“They will go on Google and type a word, and that is the extent of their research skills,” said Ms. Shaw, who taught 5th grade for 10 years and now teaches special education at Ralph D. Butler Elementary School. “There is so much more to doing research on the Internet.”

She is one of many teachers and librarians who are explicitly teaching online research skills, such as how to evaluate a website’s credibility, how to use precise keywords, and how to better mine search engines and databases.

In November 2012, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released a study that surveyed 2,067 Advanced Placement and National Writing Project teachers. It found that while most teachers agreed that the Internet provides a wealth of information to students, they also said students often don’t have the digital-literacy skills to wade through that information. Forty-seven percent of the teachers surveyed said they “strongly agree” and another 44 percent said they “somewhat believe” that courses and content focusing on digital literacy should be incorporated into the school curriculum.

Smart Searching

Teaching students to be savvy online researchers starts with knowing how to use key words. That is something 6th grader Katie Lacey has worked hard to master.

“You need precise words,” said Katie, a student at Albuquerque Academy, a private school for grades 6-12 in New Mexico. “If I’m looking up the John F. Kennedy assassination, I have to use those words. If I type in just Kennedy assassination, I could get information on Robert Kennedy.”

Another important skill to teach students is how to predict the results they expect to see when they type in search terms, said Tasha Bergson-Michelson, a librarian who works for the Google Search Education team at the technology company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Doing that can help them know when they may need to change their terms, she said.

In addition, Ms. Bergson-Michelson advises students to skim search results for words that pop up, especially unfamiliar words. People have a tendency to skip over words they don’t know, she said. But those words, when added to search terms, can lead to more meaningful results. For instance, if a student wanted to find information on immigrants who send money back to their home countries, the term “remittances” comes up on search results.

“When you change the search to include the word “remittance,” immediately the type of sources are qualitatively different and more suited for an academic or scholarly pursuit,” Ms. Bergson-Michelson said.

Using search operators, words, or symbols that join key words to form a more complex query can make searching more focused.

Students can put quotation marks around their search terms to get results that include the exact wording. A minus sign eliminates something from a search. For instance, if students wanted to find information about the planet Saturn, but not the car of that name, they could type “Saturn-car” to narrow their results. Using “and” between search terms can give results that focus on two subjects, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Choosing Search Engines

Finding the right search engine or database is also an important step in conducting online research, said Frances Jacobson Harris, a librarian at University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Ill.

She encourages students to use Google Scholar, which includes academic and scholarly sources of information. Google Books allows searchers to read pages from books, and if the information is useful, a searcher can then find the book in a library collection.

Gloria Ha, a junior at University Laboratory High School, said she first started learning about effective search techniques in 8th grade. Knowing how to search has made her more thoughtful in her approaches to finding information online.

“I usually start with Google Scholar or Google just to figure out what the topic is. Once I have a better idea, I’ll go deeper,” she said. “For example, if it’s a history paper, I’ll use the online library catalog, or sometimes there are e-books online through the university.”

Ms. Harris teaches students how to access the invisible Web, databases that schools and libraries pay a fee to access. Those databases include scholarly articles, academic journals, online encyclopedias, archived editions of periodicals such as The New York Times , and other resources.

Some teachers steer students toward sites and search engines written specifically for children.

For example, the Kentucky Virtual Library , a consortium of libraries that provides residents of the state access to online databases—has a portal for K-12 students that outlines the steps for conducting online research, including how to use key words and how to organize information into notes, that is written in student-friendly language and designed to appeal visually to young children.

The portal also allows young users to access databases geared to children, including Searchasaurus and Grolier Online.

“They are more likely to get the right information at their reading level than simply going on Google,” said Enid Wohlstein, the director of the library, which is based in Frankfort.

Ed Baklini, a 6th grade history teacher at Albuquerque Academy in New Mexico, advises his students when using Google to type in a key word and the word “kid” after it. Doing so pulls up results for younger students. Mr. Baklini also directs them to free databases such as an educational site managed by the Lone Star College System in Texas that contains information about American history decade by decade.

“When you go to one of these sites, there are hundreds of other trusted links to go to,” he said. “This information comes from librarians and teachers who have taught history.”

Evaluating Websites

Just as critical as smart searching is evaluating the information on the Web. Students can take specific steps to dissect a website, such as checking whether its URL ends in a .com, .org, .gov, or .edu.

“If it’s from a university, museum, government, or some state run agency, then it’s pretty valid,” Ms. Shaw of Butler Elementary School said. “If it’s someone’s personal website, how do you know what that person is saying is true?”

In any case, students should approach websites with a critical eye.

“They should ask themselves while searching on sites: Who wrote this? What is the perspective of the person who wrote this?” said Rebecca Randall, the vice president of education programs for Common Sense Media , a San Francisco-based nonprofit group that studies the effects of media and technology on young people.

“Or else while searching for information on African-American history, they could wind up on the site for the Ku Klux Klan.”

It’s also important to know if a site is commercial. If so, it may be slanted toward having users buy products.

“Not that advertising on a site makes it less credible,” Ms. Randall said. “But it’s just another point to consider when looking at information. What is the intent of the information?”

When students take the time to approach their Web research thoughtfully, they sometimes encounter websites that are biased. Ms. Harris, the University Laboratory High librarian, recalls working with a student who was writing a paper on George Orwell’s 1984 . The boy found an essay about the book on the site of the Institute for Historical Review. Upon closer examination, the website was a Holocaust-denial website, Ms. Harris said.

“It looks scholarly because it’s called ‘institute,’ and there are citations at the bottom,” she said.

To help students scrutinize websites, Ms. Harris uses a lesson called “Whodunit,” which takes students to various sites and has them answer questions about who wrote the information, what their credentials are, and who is sponsoring the site.

Ms. Shaw provides a checklist to help students decide whether sites are credible. It includes questions such as: Are there dead links? Do images support the stated facts? Are there links and references to other websites, and resources and experts that corroborate the information?

Mr. Baklini of Albuquerque Academy advises his students to be aware of sites where the language comes on too strong and the attempt is to persuade readers how to think.

He also starts the school year by teaching a media-literacy unit in which he shows students how to examine the persuasive techniques advertisers use when trying to sell products. The point is to teach his students how to look at media carefully. That ability to scrutinize carries over to their Web research, he said.

“I have them think about these persuasive techniques, and I say if you see any of those techniques in there, if someone is trying to convince you to think a certain way, you can still read that website, but take it with a grain of salt,” he said.

It can be difficult for teachers to carve out time to teach yet another set of skills. But it’s important to do so, Ms. Randall of Common Sense Media said.

“If you don’t take time to do it, the kids aren’t going to be giving you their best work,” she said. “You have kids pulling information from sources that are not reliable and building a hypothesis or research paper around information that isn’t accurate.”

Modeling the Process

Teachers should model the process for searching online and make it something students do regularly in their classes, educators say.

Ms. Shaw integrated searching into her classroom by creating a classroom job of “searcher.” That student’s responsibility was to search the Internet for answers to questions that would come up during the day’s class. Ms. Shaw used that approach as an opportunity to talk about strategies for good online research.

Teaching students solid online search skills is important not only because it will help them produce better work, but also because it prepares them to judge the validity of all sorts of information and to be critical thinkers.

Librarians have a natural place in the forefront of helping students be more adept at online research.

“School librarians should be a partner in this,” Ms. Harris said. “Oftentimes, teachers don’t realize that, or sadly schools don’t have school librarians.”

Teachers should give credit to the process of searching, not just for the final product, she added. Students can turn in search logs or annotated bibliographies to emphasize that process.

“This tells the students that teachers value what sources the students are using and that the sources they use matter,” Ms. Harris said. “That way, kids won’t just jump to the easiest, most meaningless thing.”

She and others say it’s vital to reinforce those skills repeatedly in working with students.

“They won’t learn everything they need to know from one assignment,” Ms. Harris said. “It’s like learning how to write. Every context is different.”

Coverage of the education industry and K-12 innovation is supported in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage. A version of this article appeared in the May 22, 2013 edition of Education Week as Teaching Students The Skills to Be Savvy Researchers

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September 5

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Boost Your Brainpower: How to Improve Research Skills Like a Pro

By   Joshua Turner

September 5, 2023

Research is an essential component of academic and professional life. It involves gathering information, analyzing it, and presenting it in a meaningful way. However, conducting research can be a challenging task. It requires a set of skills that can be improved over time. This article will discuss some tips and strategies for enhancing them.

Understanding the basics is the first step toward improving your capabilities. This includes knowing how to identify reliable sources, conducting effective searches, and evaluating the credibility of information.

You also need to clearly understand the process , including the different stages involved. Mastering these basics can improve your ability to gather and analyze information, which is integral for effective study.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding the basics is vital for improving your skills .
• Conducting effective searches and evaluating the credibility of information is crucial to successful research.
• A clear understanding of the process can improve your ability to gather and analyze information.

Understanding the Basics of Research

Defining research.

Research is a systematic process of collecting and analyzing information to answer a question or solve a problem. It involves identifying a problem, formulating a hypothesis, collecting and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions. It can be conducted in various fields, including science, social sciences, and humanities. It is a critical tool for acquiring knowledge and advancing our understanding of the world around us.

Importance of Research Skills

Developing proficiency in this allows individuals to gather and evaluate information, make decisions, and solve problems effectively. It involves knowing how to identify reliable sources, assess the credibility of information, and synthesize data into meaningful insights. These are particularly important in academic research, where the quality can impact one’s grades, reputation, and career prospects.

The Research Process

Identifying the problem.

The first step is identifying the problem you want to investigate. This involves determining what questions you want to answer or what information you want to gather. You need to be clear and specific about your goals to stay on track throughout the process.

Collecting Data

Once you have identified the problem, the next step is to collect data. This can involve conducting surveys, reviewing literature, or analyzing existing data. Use various sources to ensure you have a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

Analyzing Information

After collecting data, you need to analyze the information you have gathered. This involves looking for patterns, trends, and relationships in the data. You may need statistical analysis or other methods to interpret the data and draw conclusions.

Presenting Findings

The final step is presenting your findings. This can involve creating visual aids such as charts or graphs to help illustrate your results. You also need to be able to clearly explain your findings and how they relate to your research problem.

Improving Information Gathering

Effective use of search engines.

Search engines are a valuable tool for finding information quickly and easily . Start by using specific keywords that accurately reflect what you’re looking for. Use quotation marks to search for exact phrases and the minus sign to exclude certain words. Don’t rely solely on the first few results; dig deeper to find relevant and reliable sources.

Utilizing Library Resources

Libraries offer a wealth of resources beyond just books. Take advantage of databases and other online resources provided by your library. These resources often provide access to peer-reviewed articles and other reliable sources that may not be available through a simple internet search. Ask a librarian for help if you need help figuring out where to start.

Evaluating Information Sources

Not all information sources are created equal. Consider the author’s credentials, publication date, and publisher when evaluating sources. Look for sources that are peer-reviewed or come from reputable organizations. Be wary of references that seem biased or contain false information. Use critical thinking to evaluate the information you find and determine its reliability.

Enhancing Critical Thinking and Analytical Skills

Understanding bias.

To enhance critical thinking and analytical abilities, understand the impact of bias . Everyone has preferences, and it is necessary to recognize them to avoid making assumptions. To overcome bias, question assumptions, challenge stereotypes, and seek diverse perspectives.

Observation and Inquiry

Observation and inquiry are critical to developing analytical proficiency. Observing carefully and asking questions can help identify patterns and relationships that might not be immediately apparent. Be curious, ask questions, and seek out information to develop a deeper understanding of a topic.

Practice and Creativity

Engage in activities that challenge your thinking and encourage creativity , such as brainstorming, problem-solving, and analyzing complex data. Engaging in these activities regularly can help develop and refine your analytical abilities.

Effective Writing and Communication

Drafting an outline.

Before starting any project, clearly understand what you want to achieve and the direction you want to take. Drafting an outline is an excellent way to organize your thoughts and ideas.

It helps you create a roadmap, ensuring you stay on track and take all critical points. An outline should include the main points you want to cover, sub-points, and supporting evidence.

Report and Blog Post Writing

When writing a report or a blog post, keeping your audience in mind is vital. Your writing should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. Use simple language and avoid jargon that your readers may need help understanding. Use headings, bullet points, and tables to break up your text and make it easier to read. Always proofread your work before publishing to ensure that it is error-free.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious offense that can have severe consequences. Always cite your sources correctly and give credit where credit is due. Use quotation marks when using someone else’s words, and include a citation.

When paraphrasing, reword the text in your own words and include a citation. Use plagiarism checkers to ensure that your work is original and free from plagiarism.

Time Management and Organization

Prioritizing tasks.

One of the skills for improving it is prioritizing tasks effectively. Start by creating a list of all the tasks you need to complete, and then rank them in order of importance.

Use a tool like a to-do list or a project management app  to keep track of your priorities and deadlines. This will help you focus on and complete the most critical tasks on time.

Meeting Deadlines

To ensure you meet your deadlines, create a schedule with specific deadlines for each task. Use a calendar or reminder app to keep track of your deadlines and set reminders for yourself.

Break down large tasks into smaller, more manageable ones, and set deadlines for each subtask. This will help you stay on track and avoid last-minute rushes.

Multitasking

Multitasking can effectively improve your competence, but it can also be a trap. To multitask effectively, group similar tasks together and focus on one task at a time. Avoid switching between tasks too frequently, as this can lead to decreased productivity and increased stress. Use tools like timers or Pomodoro apps  to help you stay focused and avoid distractions.

Adapting and Improving Research Skills

Continuous learning.

Staying up-to-date with the latest methodologies, tools, and techniques is vital. One way to do this is by attending workshops, conferences, and webinars. Another way is to read papers and articles regularly. Doing this lets you learn new strategies and techniques to help you in your work .

Adapting to New Research Strategies

The field is constantly evolving, and new strategies are being developed all the time. Adapt to these new strategies as they emerge.

One way to do this is by collaborating with other researchers using these new strategies. Another way is to experiment with new techniques yourself. Doing this lets you learn which strategies work best for your research and adapt accordingly.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do students develop research skills.

They can be developed by practicing critical thinking , reading widely, and learning to evaluate sources. Students can also benefit from taking courses in methods and participating in projects.

How can I improve my online research skills?

Students can start by using advanced search techniques, such as Boolean operators and quotation marks. They should also learn to evaluate online sources for credibility, accuracy, and bias. Finally, students can use tools like citation managers to keep track of their references.

What skills do you need to succeed in research?

Students need various skills, including critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and time management . They should also be able to work independently, collaborate effectively, and adapt to new technologies and methods.

How do you develop research skills in critical thinking?

Students should learn to ask questions, analyze evidence, and evaluate arguments. They can also benefit from practicing different types of research, such as empirical, theoretical, and applied research.

What are some research tips for students?

Some tips include starting early, creating a plan , using various sources, taking notes, and citing sources properly. Students should also be prepared to revise their questions and methods as needed.

Why are research skills important for students?

They are vital because they help them to become critical thinkers, problem-solvers, and lifelong learners. These are also necessary for success in many careers , including academia, business, and government.

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5 Skills Students Need for Effective Online Research

by Allison Papke | May 24, 2019 | PDQuestions Blog

Have you ever considered the skills necessary to effectively complete research online? You may think that because kids today are quick to learn how to use new technology that they already have the skills necessary to do online research. Take a look at these 5 skills to determine if your students are online research pros or if you need to dedicate some time to embedding them into your curriculum for the 2019-2020 school year. 

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• 10 Tips To Improve Your Online Research Skills

The world of the internet is gigantic. And we could easily lose direction if we don’t have the faintest idea about proper research skills and techniques. Around 1 trillion megabytes of data is produced on the internet every day. Hence, finding the data that ticks all your boxes require you to curate the data in a strategic way.

This article will walk you through the ten cardinal steps to improve how you utilize the internet for retrieving information. We are here to help enhance your research skills and ace in that research project you are working on!

Table of Contents

Colleges arrange all sorts of writing seminar classes and workshops. However, the part where we teach real-life research skills to the freshers hardly ever happens. At best, students get a tour of the campus library with the librarian. However, the tour includes next to zero guidance on utilising the library resources with efficacy.

Considering the situation, students often rely on Wikipedia because it is quicker for a rundown of the information they need. However, learning research techniques can be good for your personal development. And college may not assist you in the process. So, you need to acquire the research skills and work on them by yourself.

Without further ado, let’s look at the ten techniques you can follow to become an expert in research.   

1. Start Broad to Find a Specific Topic That Sticks

The first step in developing your research skills is to start big. Look into and read about the controversial issues around the world right now. If you are writing a paper for college, chances are your instructor already rolled out guidelines. Follow them for writing an appropriate paper. 

If you do not adhere to the parameters, your instructor may not deem it as acceptable. For instance, you can’t write a paper on the origin of the Olympic Games in a STEM class. Hence, the topic has to be course-appropriate.   

However, choosing the topic you want to work with will be solely your decision. The basic tip to selecting a topic is to choose something you are personally interested in. This will weaponise your motivation to deliver great content to your reader. Secondly, you will enjoy yourselves as you brush up on your research skills, learning more about the issue.      

2. Do a Preliminary Search Online

Before you start writing, do a quick search on Google or Wikipedia. It will provide you with a brief idea about the work that has been previously done on the topic you want to work with. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can use Wikipedia or Google as reliable sources.

Use these tools to get an overview and a clearer understanding. Moreover, this is one of the vital research skills you can use to make sense of keywords. Using the appropriate keywords will help pose your arguments carefully. For instance, if you want to write a paper on the legalisation of marijuana, do not type that into the search engine. Instead, put the word marijuana and see what comes up.

Use broader keywords to get better results. Consequently, draw an outline of questions. And use those questions as keywords to look up online. It is one of the crucial tips for enhancing your research skills. Consequently, the more source of information you can have, the more original your paper will be.

We’ve all been through the struggle of finding valid information for our semester final analysis paper. You might be an excellent writer or drafter. But not having proper research skills can stop you from reaping the benefits of your gift.

You can take our internet research skills training course and learn how to find accurate information. The course will teach you to evaluate and validate the credibility of your source.

3. Proper Use of Online Search Engine & Learning Tools

Using of online search engine more efficiently improves your research skills. So don’t spend all your time on Google, or just one search engine for that matter. First off, use your organisation’s online library resources. School libraries tend to have subscriptions to a plethora of academic databases. 

Next, make yourself acquainted with Worldcat . It has over 2 billion bibliography items ready for you. Consequently, WorldCat is connected to library catalogues all over the world. You can use this feature to locate a particular journal, article, or book’s whereabouts. In short, WorldCat is the best friend every researcher wishes to have.   

Consequently, you need to know how to experiment with keywords and filters. You might be knowledgeable about an ample amount of search engines. But having access to it won’t necessarily help. 

It would help if you refined your online searches for better results. You can’t just type in a phrase and hit the search button because you will not find the data you want if you do that. This is where your expertise on keywords can help. Extract the essential words from your research questions. Moreover, use words synonymous with your keywords to generate better search results. 

Using refined keywords and filters can help you dig deep into the subjects. As a result, you can find specific and useful information on your topic. Thus, keywords and filters are the ultimate search engine optimizing tools.

4. Analyse the Credibility of Your Source

Anybody can publish their work or opinions on the internet. While you should not limit your research to a couple of articles, you should discern the source’s credibility. You can assess and analyse the credibility by always remaining vigilant.  

Ask yourself questions like, does the source provide a similar view like other sources? Can the source give enough evidence to back up its claims? Does the source seem biased or have an ulterior motive? Does the author have sufficient expertise in their field? For instance, if an English major graduate starts conceptualising theories of quantum physics, steer clear right away. 

For academic purposes, it is best to source information from academic journals and articles. However, books written on the broader aspect of your topic can be excellent sources too. Academic books have a lot to offer. Apart from the information, you can take up a tip or two about improving your research skills. 

Using newspapers and blogs as credible sources are frowned upon in academia. However, it won’t hurt you to read them. If anything, these would make you more knowledgeable because blogs and newspapers present you with more unprocessed and practical information in real-time.

5. Cross-Check Your Information

You now know where to and how to collect information from credible sources. Cross-checking the information you collected is integral in enhancing your research skills. As we’ve mentioned earlier, the internet is a big place. Anybody can publish their work without any factual checking. 

Sometimes, the information from a source can be outright wrong. Hence, you must cross-check information with at least two other web pages. Remember the phrase that you don’t buy the first car you see? The rule applies to gathering information online as well. You should not get stuck on just one webpage. Stick to sources that have made their reputation providing quality information. 

If you can’t verify the truth of the information to your satisfaction, better not to use it at all. Also, steer clear of social media for collecting data. It is a beehive full of misinformation.

6. Take Notes & Organise Your Information

The initial stage of honing your research skills can feel a lot like trudging through the mud. There are millions of data out there. Moreover, there could be thousands of previous research done on your topic. Needless to say, going through thousands of articles or journals is next to impossible. 

However, you need to note down every useful information you can get from the source. This technique will help make your work more informative. Moreover, noting down the information will help you to be more organised. If you don’t take notes from the beginning, useful data might get neglected in the process. 

Consequently, you might find yourself going through the same article multiple times to find a piece of information. This could make you feel lost and frustrated. Moreover, it takes away your precious time. While noting down the quotes and information, note down the page number and bibliography on the side. It saves you from fumbling away.

Consequently, make notes of your speeding thoughts in the notebook. Because chances are you won’t get the same idea twice. Make use of the bookmark tool. You can store the URLs in the bookmark in a separate folder. It will be easier for you to navigate. And later on, you could easily make a bibliography of all your references from the bookmark. 

7. Cite Your Sources

You always need to give credit and cite your sources. Not citing your sources fall under the category of plagiarism. And it is a  severe violation of academic integrity. Hence, give credit where credit is due.

Moreover, citing your sources further increases your credibility.  In contrast, passing off someone else’s words as yours make your readers sceptic. Even if you plagiarise a single sentence, the whole point gets lost. No amount of research skills can help if you do not cite your sources. You can use any of the two popular citation formats; APA or MLA.

By citing your sources, you are also helping others brush up their research skills. As reading and collecting information from reliable sources is integral in developing your research skills. No matter how good your argumentative paper is, your instructor can take disciplinary actions if you fail to cite your sources. Because in academia, plagiarism is avoidable while dishonesty is deplorable!   

8. Put Your Time Management Skills Into Use

As soon as you get a project on hand, make a research schedule. Create a few hours window in a day when you do nothing except work on your research project. This will let you block all the distractions and focus on the work at hand. In a sense, your time management skills can help you level up your research skills.

Proper research needs a systematic strategy. Not maintaining a timesheet can throw you off the schedule. You may feel like you are all over the place. Your progress may even seem cluttered. Map out how many minutes you will spend on each article. Moreover, you can make a routine of short breaks that you need to take in-between.

Choose a day in a week you feel more comfortable fiddling around in the library. It is better if you stop yourself from checking socials while working. Even just a little peek could throw you off the track. Because when you take an unscheduled break to check your emails, you have to reorient yourself when you come back. So, it is better to put your phone in do not disturb mode because it will help you keep focused.   

9. Be Patient & Tackle Challenges

In the present world, we are used to getting things instantaneously. Do you want the latest iPhone? You pre-order it and receive it on the release day at once. Need a waffle machine?  Amazon Prime comes in with their same-day delivery policy. 

However, the scholastic and research world is very different. In the sense that no one will serve you the data on a silver platter. You need to throw your hat into the ring and  get the job  done by yourself! And sometimes, searching through a pool of data and information can become very tedious. 

You might even get frustrated if you do not find the answers you were looking for. And that is okay! However, you should not throw in the towel. Part of being a good researcher is about being patient and persistent. Some days, you might not find what you are looking for. 

Regardless, you have to tackle all the challenges for finding the relevant information. Use sources that are even remotely related to what you are looking for. Sometimes, your job will be about drawing the faintest connection between a source and your topic. Moreover, you will need to comprehend and analyse the source for bringing attention to new ideas.         

10. Be Ready For Unexpected Answers

Embracing uncertainty is what makes someone a good researcher with optimised research skills. Keep an open mind while you go into research for a topic. You might be presented with some very surprising answers. That is the thrilling part of your job.

Remember, mere looking for confirmation for what you already know is not a good practice. It makes your research scope too narrow and limiting. Moreover, there might not be enough information online on your research. Consequently, the sources may present arguments contradictory to your views. And you need to be okay with that! 

Because you need answers to your research question, not reaffirm your belief, reformulating your opinions based on facts and evidence is a good practice. In addition, it adds to the effort of strengthening your research skills.

Research is not just about going through tons of articles or newspapers in a day. Online research skills are all about techniques. Believe it or not, your online research skills are not just for academia. These are transferable work skills. These 10-step research strategies are going to increase your productivity at the workplace, too.

For instance, you may need to research your competitor and develop a better marketing strategy. And to do that, you need to dig deeper and research what your consumers need. The process can be compared to a domino effect. It would help if you devised a proper game plan before diving into it.

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Research skills are the ability to find out accurate information on a topic. They include being able to determine the data you need, find and interpret those findings, and then explain that to others. Being able to do effective research is a beneficial skill in any profession, as data and research inform how businesses operate.

Whether you’re unsure of your research skills or are looking for ways to further improve them, then this article will cover important research skills and how to become even better at research.

Key Takeaways

Having strong research skills can help you understand your competitors, develop new processes, and build your professional skills in addition to aiding you in finding new customers and saving your company money.

Some of the most valuable research skills you can have include goal setting, data collection, and analyzing information from multiple sources.

You can and should put your research skills on your resume and highlight them in your job interviews.

What are research skills?

Why are research skills important, 12 of the most important research skills, how to improve your research skills, highlighting your research skills in a job interview, how to include research skills on your resume, resume examples showcasing research skills, research skills faqs.

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Research skills are the necessary tools to be able to find, compile, and interpret information in order to answer a question. Of course, there are several aspects to this. Researchers typically have to decide how to go about researching a problem — which for most people is internet research.

In addition, you need to be able to interpret the reliability of a source, put the information you find together in an organized and logical way, and be able to present your findings to others. That means that they’re comprised of both hard skills — knowing your subject and what’s true and what isn’t — and soft skills. You need to be able to interpret sources and communicate clearly.

Research skills are useful in any industry, and have applications in innovation, product development, competitor research, and many other areas. In addition, the skills used in researching aren’t only useful for research. Being able to interpret information is a necessary skill, as is being able to clearly explain your reasoning.

Research skills are used to:

Do competitor research. Knowing what your biggest competitors are up to is an essential part of any business. Researching what works for your competitors, what they’re doing better than you, and where you can improve your standing with the lowest resource expenditure are all essential if a company wants to remain functional.

Develop new processes and products. You don’t have to be involved in research and development to make improvements in how your team gets things done. Researching new processes that make your job (and those of your team) more efficient will be valued by any sensible employer.

Foster self-improvement. Folks who have a knack and passion for research are never content with doing things the same way they’ve always been done. Organizations need independent thinkers who will seek out their own answers and improve their skills as a matter of course. These employees will also pick up new technologies more easily.

Manage customer relationships. Being able to conduct research on your customer base is positively vital in virtually every industry. It’s hard to move products or sell services if you don’t know what people are interested in. Researching your customer base’s interests, needs, and pain points is a valuable responsibility.

Save money. Whether your company is launching a new product or just looking for ways to scale back its current spending, research is crucial for finding wasted resources and redirecting them to more deserving ends. Anyone who proactively researches ways that the company can save money will be highly appreciated by their employer.

Solve problems. Problem solving is a major part of a lot of careers, and research skills are instrumental in making sure your solution is effective. Finding out the cause of the problem and determining an effective solution both require accurate information, and research is the best way to obtain that — be it via the internet or by observation.

Determine reliable information. Being able to tell whether or not the information you receive seems accurate is a very valuable skill. While research skills won’t always guarantee that you’ll be able to tell the reliability of the information at first glance, it’ll prevent you from being too trusting. And it’ll give the tools to double-check .

Experienced researchers know that worthwhile investigation involves a variety of skills. Consider which research skills come naturally to you, and which you could work on more.

Data collection . When thinking about the research process, data collection is often the first thing that comes to mind. It is the nuts and bolts of research. How data is collected can be flexible.

For some purposes, simply gathering facts and information on the internet can fulfill your need. Others may require more direct and crowd-sourced research. Having experience in various methods of data collection can make your resume more impressive to recruiters.

Data collection methods include: Observation Interviews Questionnaires Experimentation Conducting focus groups

Analysis of information from different sources. Putting all your eggs in one source basket usually results in error and disappointment. One of the skills that good researchers always incorporate into their process is an abundance of sources. It’s also best practice to consider the reliability of these sources.

Are you reading about U.S. history on a conspiracy theorist’s blog post? Taking facts for a presentation from an anonymous Twitter account?

If you can’t determine the validity of the sources you’re using, it can compromise all of your research. That doesn’t mean just disregard anything on the internet but double-check your findings. In fact, quadruple-check. You can make your research even stronger by turning to references outside of the internet.

Examples of reliable information sources include: Published books Encyclopedias Magazines Databases Scholarly journals Newspapers Library catalogs

Finding information on the internet. While it can be beneficial to consulate alternative sources, strong internet research skills drive modern-day research.

One of the great things about the internet is how much information it contains, however, this comes with digging through a lot of garbage to get to the facts you need. The ability to efficiently use the vast database of knowledge that is on the internet without getting lost in the junk is very valuable to employers.

Internet research skills include: Source checking Searching relevant questions Exploring deeper than the first options Avoiding distraction Giving credit Organizing findings

Interviewing. Some research endeavors may require a more hands-on approach than just consulting internet sources. Being prepared with strong interviewing skills can be very helpful in the research process.

Interviews can be a useful research tactic to gain first-hand information and being able to manage a successful interview can greatly improve your research skills.

Interviewing skills involves: A plan of action Specific, pointed questions Respectfulness Considering the interview setting Actively Listening Taking notes Gratitude for participation

Report writing. Possessing skills in report writing can assist you in job and scholarly research. The overall purpose of a report in any context is to convey particular information to its audience.

Effective report writing is largely dependent on communication. Your boss, professor , or general reader should walk away completely understanding your findings and conclusions.

Report writing skills involve: Proper format Including a summary Focusing on your initial goal Creating an outline Proofreading Directness

Critical thinking. Critical thinking skills can aid you greatly throughout the research process, and as an employee in general. Critical thinking refers to your data analysis skills. When you’re in the throes of research, you need to be able to analyze your results and make logical decisions about your findings.

Critical thinking skills involve: Observation Analysis Assessing issues Problem-solving Creativity Communication

Planning and scheduling. Research is a work project like any other, and that means it requires a little forethought before starting. Creating a detailed outline map for the points you want to touch on in your research produces more organized results.

It also makes it much easier to manage your time. Planning and scheduling skills are important to employers because they indicate a prepared employee.

Planning and scheduling skills include: Setting objectives Identifying tasks Prioritizing Delegating if needed Vision Communication Clarity Time-management

Note-taking. Research involves sifting through and taking in lots of information. Taking exhaustive notes ensures that you will not neglect any findings later and allows you to communicate these results to your co-workers. Being able to take good notes helps summarize research.

Examples of note-taking skills include: Focus Organization Using short-hand Keeping your objective in mind Neatness Highlighting important points Reviewing notes afterward

Communication skills. Effective research requires being able to understand and process the information you receive, either written or spoken. That means that you need strong reading comprehension and writing skills — two major aspects of communication — as well as excellent listening skills.

Most research also involves showcasing your findings. This can be via a presentation. , report, chart, or Q&A. Whatever the case, you need to be able to communicate your findings in a way that educates your audience.

Communication skills include: Reading comprehension Writing Listening skills Presenting to an audience Creating graphs or charts Explaining in layman’s terms

Time management. We’re, unfortunately, only given 24 measly hours in a day. The ability to effectively manage this time is extremely powerful in a professional context. Hiring managers seek candidates who can accomplish goals in a given timeframe.

Strong time management skills mean that you can organize a plan for how to break down larger tasks in a project and complete them by a deadline. Developing your time management skills can greatly improve the productivity of your research.

Time management skills include: Scheduling Creating task outlines Strategic thinking Stress-management Delegation Communication Utilizing resources Setting realistic expectations Meeting deadlines

Using your network. While this doesn’t seem immediately relevant to research skills, remember that there are a lot of experts out there. Knowing what people’s areas of expertise and asking for help can be tremendously beneficial — especially if it’s a subject you’re unfamiliar with.

Your coworkers are going to have different areas of expertise than you do, and your network of people will as well. You may even know someone who knows someone who’s knowledgeable in the area you’re researching. Most people are happy to share their expertise, as it’s usually also an area of interest to them.

Networking involves: Remembering people’s areas of expertise Being willing to ask for help Communication Returning favors Making use of advice Asking for specific assistance

Attention to detail. Research is inherently precise. That means that you need to be attentive to the details, both in terms of the information you’re gathering, but also in where you got it from. Making errors in statistics can have a major impact on the interpretation of the data, not to mention that it’ll reflect poorly on you.

There are proper procedures for citing sources that you should follow. That means that your sources will be properly credited, preventing accusations of plagiarism. In addition, it means that others can make use of your research by returning to the original sources.

Attention to detail includes: Double checking statistics Taking notes Keeping track of your sources Staying organized Making sure graphs are accurate and representative Properly citing sources

As with many professional skills, research skills serve us in our day to day life. Any time you search for information on the internet, you’re doing research. That means that you’re practicing it outside of work as well. If you want to continue improving your research skills, both for professional and personal use, here are some tips to try.

Differentiate between source quality. A researcher is only as good as their worst source. Start paying attention to the quality of the sources you use, and be suspicious of everything your read until you check out the attributions and works cited.

Be critical and ask yourself about the author’s bias, where the author’s research aligns with the larger body of verified research in the field, and what publication sponsored or published the research.

Use multiple resources. When you can verify information from a multitude of sources, it becomes more and more credible. To bolster your faith in one source, see if you can find another source that agrees with it.

Don’t fall victim to confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when a researcher expects a certain outcome and then goes to find data that supports this hypothesis. It can even go so far as disregarding anything that challenges the researcher’s initial hunch. Be prepared for surprising answers and keep an open mind.

Be open to the idea that you might not find a definitive answer. It’s best to be honest and say that you found no definitive answer instead of just confirming what you think your boss or coworkers expect or want to hear. Experts and good researchers are willing to say that they don’t know.

Stay organized. Being able to cite sources accurately and present all your findings is just as important as conducting the research itself. Start practicing good organizational skills , both on your devices and for any physical products you’re using.

Get specific as you go. There’s nothing wrong with starting your research in a general way. After all, it’s important to become familiar with the terminology and basic gist of the researcher’s findings before you dig down into all the minutia.

A job interview is itself a test of your research skills. You can expect questions on what you know about the company, the role, and your field or industry more generally. In order to give expert answers on all these topics, research is crucial.

Start by researching the company . Look into how they communicate with the public through social media, what their mission statement is, and how they describe their culture.

Pay close attention to the tone of their website. Is it hyper professional or more casual and fun-loving? All of these elements will help decide how best to sell yourself at the interview.

Next, research the role. Go beyond the job description and reach out to current employees working at your desired company and in your potential department. If you can find out what specific problems your future team is or will be facing, you’re sure to impress hiring managers and recruiters with your ability to research all the facts.

Finally, take time to research the job responsibilities you’re not as comfortable with. If you’re applying for a job that represents increased difficulty or entirely new tasks, it helps to come into the interview with at least a basic knowledge of what you’ll need to learn.

Research projects require dedication. Being committed is a valuable skill for hiring managers. Whether you’ve had research experience throughout education or a former job, including it properly can boost the success of your resume .

Consider how extensive your research background is. If you’ve worked on multiple, in-depth research projects, it might be best to include it as its own section. If you have less research experience, include it in the skills section .

Focus on your specific role in the research, as opposed to just the research itself. Try to quantify accomplishments to the best of your abilities. If you were put in charge of competitor research, for example, list that as one of the tasks you had in your career.

If it was a particular project, such as tracking the sale of women’s clothing at a tee-shirt company, you can say that you “directed analysis into women’s clothing sales statistics for a market research project.”

Ascertain how directly research skills relate to the job you’re applying for. How strongly you highlight your research skills should depend on the nature of the job the resume is for. If research looks to be a strong component of it, then showcase all of your experience.

If research looks to be tangential, then be sure to mention it — it’s a valuable skill — but don’t put it front and center.

Example #1: Academic Research

Simon Marks 767 Brighton Blvd. | Brooklyn, NY, 27368 | (683)-262-8883 | [email protected] Diligent and hardworking recent graduate seeking a position to develop professional experience and utilize research skills. B.A. in Biological Sciences from New York University. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Lixus Publishing , Brooklyn, NY Office Assistant- September 2018-present Scheduling and updating meetings Managing emails and phone calls Reading entries Worked on a science fiction campaign by researching target demographic Organizing calendars Promoted to office assistant after one year internship Mitch’s Burgers and Fries , Brooklyn, NY Restaurant Manager , June 2014-June 2018 Managed a team of five employees Responsible for coordinating the weekly schedule Hired and trained two employees Kept track of inventory Dealt with vendors Provided customer service Promoted to restaurant manager after two years as a waiter Awarded a $2.00/hr wage increase SKILLS Writing Scientific Research Data analysis Critical thinking Planning Communication RESEARCH Worked on an ecosystem biology project with responsibilities for algae collection and research (2019) Lead a group of freshmen in a research project looking into cell biology (2018) EDUCATION New York University Bachelors in Biological Sciences, September 2016-May 2020

Example #2: Professional Research

Angela Nichols 1111 Keller Dr. | San Francisco, CA | (663)-124-8827 |[email protected] Experienced and enthusiastic marketer with 7 years of professional experience. Seeking a position to apply my marketing and research knowledge. Skills in working on a team and flexibility. EXPERIENCE Apples amp; Oranges Marketing, San Francisco, CA Associate Marketer – April 2017-May 2020 Discuss marketing goals with clients Provide customer service Lead campaigns associated with women’s health Coordinating with a marketing team Quickly solving issues in service and managing conflict Awarded with two raises totaling $10,000 over three years Prestigious Marketing Company, San Francisco, CA Marketer – May 2014-April 2017 Working directly with clients Conducting market research into television streaming preferences Developing marketing campaigns related to television streaming services Report writing Analyzing campaign success statistics Promoted to Marketer from Junior Marketer after the first year Timberlake Public Relations, San Francisco, CA Public Relations Intern – September 2013–May 2014 Working cohesively with a large group of co-workers and supervisors Note-taking during meetings Running errands Managing email accounts Assisting in brainstorming Meeting work deadlines EDUCATION Golden Gate University, San Francisco, CA Bachelor of Arts in Marketing with a minor in Communications – September 2009 – May 2013 SKILLS Marketing Market research Record-keeping Teamwork Presentation. Flexibility

What research skills are important?

Goal-setting and data collection are important research skills. Additional important research skills include:

Using different sources to analyze information.

Finding information on the internet.

Interviewing sources.

Writing reports.

Critical thinking.

Planning and scheduling.

Note-taking.

Managing time.

How do you develop good research skills?

You develop good research skills by learning how to find information from multiple high-quality sources, by being wary of confirmation bias, and by starting broad and getting more specific as you go.

When you learn how to tell a reliable source from an unreliable one and get in the habit of finding multiple sources that back up a claim, you’ll have better quality research.

In addition, when you learn how to keep an open mind about what you’ll find, you’ll avoid falling into the trap of confirmation bias, and by staying organized and narrowing your focus as you go (rather than before you start), you’ll be able to gather quality information more efficiently.

What is the importance of research?

The importance of research is that it informs most decisions and strategies in a business. Whether it’s deciding which products to offer or creating a marketing strategy, research should be used in every part of a company.

Because of this, employers want employees who have strong research skills. They know that you’ll be able to put them to work bettering yourself and the organization as a whole.

Should you put research skills on your resume?

Yes, you should include research skills on your resume as they are an important professional skill. Where you include your research skills on your resume will depend on whether you have a lot of experience in research from a previous job or as part of getting your degree, or if you’ve just cultivated them on your own.

If your research skills are based on experience, you could put them down under the tasks you were expected to perform at the job in question. If not, then you should likely list it in your skills section.

University of the People – The Best Research Skills for Success

Association of Internet Research Specialists — What are Research Skills and Why Are They Important?

MasterClass — How to Improve Your Research Skills: 6 Research Tips

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Sky Ariella is a professional freelance writer, originally from New York. She has been featured on websites and online magazines covering topics in career, travel, and lifestyle. She received her BA in psychology from Hunter College.

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Part iv: teaching research skills in today’s digital environment.

Given these findings about how students today define “research” and approach the research process, teachers are faced with identifying and teaching middle and high school students the skills they will need to be smart information seekers in the digital age. The data indicate that teachers in this study place tremendous value on research skills, with most reporting assigning a research paper to their students in the 2011-2012 academic year and spending class time teaching various research skills to their students.  These lessons are aimed at addressing deficits they see in today’s students.  Most notable among these is the inability to judge the quality of information, a skill the vast majority of teachers deem “essential” for their students’ future success.

Most teachers in the study assigned a research paper in the 2011-2012 academic year

Among the teachers in the study, the majority assigned at least one research paper to their middle and high school students in the 2011-2012 academic year.  As the graphic below suggests, among this sample of teachers, short essays and journaling are the most commonly assigned writing tasks, with more than half of the sample (58%) having their students write short essays, short responses, or opinion pieces at least once a week and 41% having students journal on a weekly basis.

Research papers—along with multimedia assignments and creative writing in the form of plays or short stories—are not assigned by many teachers on a frequent basis, but are assigned at some point during the academic year by most of the teachers in our sample.  Just over three-quarters of these teachers report having students complete a research paper (77%) or a multimedia project (77%) at some point during the current academic year.  Two-thirds (66%) have students complete a creative writing assignment during the year as well, such as writing poetry, a play, a short story, or piece of fiction.

Some teachers are more likely than others to assign a research paper; not surprising given the different skills and subjects being taught.  Fully 94% of the English teachers in this sample assigned at least one research paper in the past academic year, compared with 83% of history/social studies teachers, 68% of science teachers, and 36% of math teachers.  Almost nine in ten teachers who participated in the NWP Summer Institute (88%) reported assigning a research paper in the 2011-2012 academic year.

Most teachers rate their students “good” or “fair” on a variety of specific research skills

Despite the overall perception that the internet and digital technologies have a “mostly positive” impact on students’ research habits, in most cases the AP and NWP teachers surveyed rate the specific research skills of their students “good” or “fair.”  Very few teachers rate their students “excellent” on any of the research skills asked about in the survey.

Overall, teachers gave students the highest ratings on their ability to use appropriate and effective search terms and understanding how online search results are generated.  Yet even for these top items, only about one-quarter of teachers rated students “excellent” or “very good.”  And in focus groups, many teachers suggested that despite the current generation of middle and high school students being raised in the “digital age,” they are often surprised at how poor their students’ search abilities are.

It kills me to see students typing in whole questions: “What does it mean to leave a digital footprint on today’s society?” into Google. The funny thing is they actually get disappointed when it doesn’t spit back an answer. I have actually found this to be a great lesson on synonyms – helping them to come up with other key words that might be helpful in their search as well. We will also spend some time looking at how advanced searches work.  – National Writing Project teacher

Reflecting teachers’ concerns about the impact of the internet on students’ expectations of “instant information,” the skill they rate students lowest on is “patience and determination in looking for information that is hard to find.”  Fully 43% of the teachers participating in the survey said that overall they would rate their students “poor” in this regard, and another 35% rate their students “fair” when it comes to patiently pursuing information they need.

A majority of survey respondents also described their students as “fair” or “poor” when it comes to:

• Using multiple sources effectively to support an argument
• Assessing the quality and accuracy of information they find online, and
• Recognizing bias in online content

These relatively low ratings (of what are by and large honors and advanced students) may reflect teachers’ expectations of the skill level they would like to help their students reach, yet survey results indicate that teachers see room for students to improve in most, if not all, of these areas.

Two patterns emerge in looking at the ratings teachers give their students on their research skills.  In the case of all but one skill asked about, more teachers of the lowest income students rate their students “poor” than do teachers of higher income students.  The only exception to this pattern is “Patience and determination in looking for information that is hard to find” on which teachers across different socioeconomic levels rate their students equally.

A second consistent pattern that emerges is that teachers with more classroom experience (16 years or more) perceive their students’ skills more positively across the board.  Teachers who have been in the classroom for 15 or fewer years, in contrast, seem to have more negative views of their students’ research skills and more of them rate their students “poor” on every skill asked about.

When it comes to patience and determination finding information, the lowest marks come from English teachers, 50% of whom rate their students “poor” in this regard.  Looking just at National Writing Project teachers, 53% of this group give their students the lowest rating of “poor.”

What research skills should be taught?

Both the survey and focus group asked teachers which research skills, in particular, are critical for the current generation of middle and high school students to learn. In focus groups, the most commonly cited skills were how to evaluate the quality of information, how to recognize what information is and is not relevant to the question at hand, and how to synthesize information from multiple sources into a coherent piece of work.

They need to know how to find information and how to judge how appropriate and accurate the material is. They need to be able to assess the biases in their sources. They need to be able to find the material that will help them.  –AP US History teacher

The impact of the Internet is that a lot of students are overwhelmed with the amount of information. So, they don’t really know exactly which is the best site because there are so many; there are millions of links per word, so [the most critical skill is] determining importance, yes. Determining importance – saliency determination.  – Teacher at College Board School

The Internet is empowering, but it’s empowering everyone’s opinion and everyone wants to get their information out there, and we need to try to teach the students to be more discriminators – have greater discrimination about the quality of the information they’re accessing.  – Teacher at College Board School

I teach tenth grade and twelfth grade Social Studies. It’s becoming much more important that the students – it’s wonderful to have the access to information – but now more than ever, I feel that they need to be smart consumers of information. And I feel students are progressively losing their ability to sort out what’s good information, what’s reliable information, and basically filter…As schools go on and Internet access becomes more prevalent and computers standard in the classroom, teaching is changing from not just teaching you how to process and restate and think about information, but also we’re going to have to teach them the skill to know how to filter this information.  – Teacher at College Board School

Survey findings echo these sentiments.  The vast majority of teachers surveyed feel that “courses or content focusing on digital literacy  must  be incorporated into every school’s curriculum,” indicating just how critical they feel the ability to locate and assess information in the digital world is. About half of the teachers in the study (47%) say they “strongly agree” and another 44% “somewhat agree” with this proposition, meaning that 93% of teachers support this curriculum change.  NWP Summer Institute teachers are particularly likely to take this view, with 59% saying they “strongly agree” that this curriculum change is needed.  Also expressing strong views on this question are teachers of students living below the poverty line, 60% of whom “strongly agree” such courses are needed.

Moreover, asked to place a value on various skills today’s students may need in the future, “judging the quality of information” tops the list, along with “writing effectively.”  These two skills were described as “essential” by 91% of the teachers who participated in the survey.  Other skills relevant to the current digital culture also ranked high, with large majorities of teachers saying that “behaving responsibly online” (85%) and “understanding privacy issues surrounding online and digital content” (78%) are “essential” to their students’ later success in life.

While evaluating the quality of information tops the list of essential skills, 56% of survey participants also feel that “finding information quickly” is essential to success.  Another 40% describe this skill as “important, but not essential,” indicating that while teachers place tremendous value on teaching their students to assess the quality of information, they also appreciate the importance of speed in today’s fast-moving digital world.  Those who have been teaching longer (16 years or more) are slightly more likely than those teaching 15 years or fewer to describe this skill as “essential” (60% of more experienced teachers v. 52% of newer teachers) but otherwise no notable differences exist across subgroups of teachers.

Among the skills included in the survey, those viewed as less essential to students’ success are “presenting themselves effectively in online social networking sites” and “working with audio, video, or graphic content.”  Fewer than one in three teachers saw either of these skills as “essential” to their students’ later success, though substantial percentages do describe each of these skills as “important, but not essential.”

When should these skills be taught, and by whom?

While the AP and NWP teachers in the study generally agreed on what skills are needed and that these skills should be a part of standard curricula, there was less consistency in their opinions of when these skills should be taught and by whom.  Asked at what point in their educational careers students should learn these critical research skills, many focus group participants felt they should be taught in elementary school, and that students should  already possess these skills prior to entering middle school or high school.  Others felt that elementary students may not be ready to learn the nuances of bias, fair use, and salience, and that these more advances skills are better taught later in a student’s career.

The question of who should be mainly responsible for this part of the curriculum was also open to debate in focus groups, with some teachers openly acknowledging that they do not currently feel qualified to teach some of these skills.  Some reported that their school’s English department takes the lead in developing research skills, and that their own role is mainly reinforcing these skills.  Yet others suggested these skills need to be taught by all teachers across the curriculum, and that library staff can be a key part of that process.

The first thing students need to learn is to discern the quality of a source. After that, they need to be able to compile information from various sources and synthesize their own work, in their own words. Students must cite all sources for their work. This should start in the elementary grades, and does in my district.  – AP Chemistry teacher

Credibility, validity, purpose, and reliability are all important aspects to consider when viewing an electronic resource. Also, students need to be aware of how recent web based information is by knowing how to check publishing dates. I think some of these skills can be taught as early as 3rd or 4th grade from the standpoint of ‘how do you know when something is true?’  –AP Biology teacher

Teachers must take the time, and take on the responsibility of teaching students how to search more wisely on the internet. I do not think enough time is devoted to this task because everyone thinks it is someone else’s job to do it…Regardless of what is done, these skills have to be explicitly taught.  – National Writing Project teacher

I find that my students do not have sound research skills in place in the 8th grade…and I’m not so certain that it is the best use of their time to tackle an isolated weighty research project. My instincts tell me to develop ongoing research expectations, in smaller, manageable chunks, so that they receive more guidance on more of the work/research. I’d rather know that my students had a chance to get better at the process of reading and researching for one focused idea than raking them through a project just to rake them through a project. There is less of chance that a student would plagiarize and an even better chance that they would learn what the difference is between work that is plagiarized and that which is not.  – National Writing Project teacher

I demonstrate how to do good research in my class and then I assign projects and papers where they have to research. I do source checks before the projects are due to make sure students are on the right track. I really rely on skills they learned in their English classes.  –AP Biology teacher

I try my best to teach students how to choose credible sources, but I rely on the expertise of others for the ins and outs of this very difficult to navigate lesson. Thank goodness there are so many resources to help me with this, but I admit. I have to do more.  – National Writing Project teacher

Current approaches to teaching critical research skills

Asked about different approaches they use to develop effective research skills in their students, two different tracts emerge—first, spending class time teaching and developing these skills, and second, designing assignments that require students to use new or different approaches.

In terms of devoting class time to this area, fully eight in ten of the AP and NWP teachers who participated in the survey report spending class time discussing how to assess the reliability of online information, and seven in ten spend class time generally discussing how to conduct research online.  Fewer teachers, but still a majority, say they spend class time helping students improve search terms and queries, yet just one-third devote class time to helping students understand how search engines work and how search results are actually generated and ranked.

A second strategy these middle and high school teachers use is intentionally constructing or shaping research assignments in ways that either direct students to the best online resources, or require students to expand the repertoire of sources they use.  Nine in ten survey respondents report directing their students to specific online resources they feel are most appropriate for a particular assignment, and 83% develop research questions or assignments that require students to use a variety of sources, both online and offline.  Substantially fewer teachers, just 29%, assign work to students in which they forbid the use of online sources.

Suggestions in the focus groups that English teachers generally take the lead on teaching these skills were echoed by survey results.  English teachers in this sample are the most likely to report implementing each one of these lessons/approaches, followed closely by history/social studies teachers.  For example, 93% of English teachers in the sample report developing assignments that require students to use a variety of sources, followed by 91% of history/social studies teachers, 77% of science teachers, and 47% of math teachers.  Similarly, when it comes to spending class time discussing how to assess the reliability of information, English teachers take the lead (94%), followed by history/social studies teachers (90%), then science teachers (69%) and math teachers (46%).

The merits of these latter strategies—structuring or shaping assignments in ways that required students to use particular sources or more varied sources—was discussed at length in focus groups.  Many teachers reported requiring students to utilize offline resources in an effort to familiarize them with materials they might not otherwise use.  Others said they stress to their students the importance of paying attention to website domains, and encourage or require them to use .gov, .org or .edu sites.  And many teachers reported banning the use of particular online sources, most commonly those with user-generated content such as Wikipedia, or telling students exactly which online resources are most useful or even permissible for particular assignments.

At the same time, teachers felt that eliminating the use of all online resources or even particular online resources in assignments is unrealistic and can be counterproductive.  Because students are already reliant on these sources when they arrive in middle and high school, and have a comfort level with them, many teachers feel a better approach is to teach students how to use these tools effectively.  Indeed, in student focus groups, teens acknowledged that even when they are “not allowed” to use Wikipedia in their research, it is still often their “first stop” in completing an assignment.  Students feel that Wikipedia’s fairly short encyclopedic entries provide them with a quick “overview” of a topic from which to orient their research process, and some teachers agreed.  Thus, rather than attempt to control which websites students utilize in completing school assignments, or even their very use of online resources, the underlying philosophy for many is teaching their students to be better information consumers in the digital arena.

I’d take the choice out of it. I’d tell them which sources to access, because the bottom line is, I’m so pressed for the time that rather than risk them going out and finding the wrong information, I tell them what sources to access and then you give them five sources and you say, ‘These are the approved sources. Do not go outside this realm.’ And ultimately that’s probably self-defeating because they’re not always going to be given that narrow focus like that, but I don’t teach in a theoretical world.  – Teacher at College Board School

We almost do the opposite in our classroom. I’m a special education teacher and we tell them what sources we don’t like and so now they can tell us what sources we don’t like that they shouldn’t use.  – Teacher at College Board School

I assign work that requires them to use online resources such as JSTOR, EBSCO, Proquest, and other databases to which our school subscribes.  –AP English Language teacher

So, how do you know what’s biased and what’s unbiased? How do you know who’s an expert and who’s working out of their basement, saying they’re a doctor? So, we kind of tell them, as a first point, to look at the [domain] – is it .edu, is it .gov, is it .org you can trust? We try to give them those pointers and then we try to say, look at the About Us page, try to do some research on the person or the company using the website.  – Teacher at College Board School

Credibility and usefulness of sources is a part of every conversation about research/inquiry projects that we undertake. This can take many forms. For some assignments I have mandated that kids solely get research from articles found in one of the databases the school subscribes to. For other projects we discuss this idea of credibility and I walk around and look at where they’re headed for research and if I need to step in and start a conversation about a particular source my student and I have that discussion.  – National Writing Project teacher

Many focus group participants also reported assigning a large research project to be completed over the course of the full academic year, which they can break into smaller steps to help students develop an understanding of the various pieces that go into successful research as well as the time that must be devoted to each.  In designing these research assignments, focus group participants suggested the following elements are particularly important:

• Showing students how to develop a focused research question and a plan of what they should be looking for, to help them “sort through the noise”
• Requiring students to utilize more than online resources
• Teaching students how to properly cite the sources they use, particularly online sources
• Developing a student’s ability to determine the timeliness, relevance, and quality of the online information they find
• Teaching students how to appropriately paraphrase and synthesize information

No matter the grade level I break [research] down in a step by step process. First working with documents, then using our learning center to find source material, establishing the credibility of that information and then using it in an essay or project.  –AP US History teacher

In all of my classes, we are visiting the library/lab on some kind of regular basis whether it’s for a persuasive essay, speech, research paper, etc. Students mark up the article, find the author’s argument/thesis, create their own, find opposing views, find supporting views, etc. These are all research skills—break it down (analyze) to write it down (synthesize).  –AP English Language teacher

Much of searching for information today is about evaluation of sources. Students often stick to what they know and they often do not expand on utilizing their search skills, so yes, I teach them about it. They tend to stick to Google. I challenge them to use various sources and explore databases. When teaching this I often explore various false sites with them. Sometimes I establish various credibility tests. I find fun material and they have to determine if it is credible or not and why. I pull material from various websites, to tabloids, to internet email hoaxes, to credible sources. They decide if it is credible material or not and how to determine if something is credible. We explore various criteria for exploring if something is credible. I also teach this with visual literacy and we explore doctored images, etc. I love pulling an image of a website that states that something happened to their favorite celebrity. They debate what is true and how to find the truth.  – National Writing Project teacher

At least half of my curriculum is devoted to doing research online. We spend a lot of time noticing differences between sources, but without judgment. Instead of asking about the credibility of sources, we spend a lot more time wondering if a particular source is of value to my writing. A personal reflection in a blog might provide the perfect turn of phrase to quote in your own argument. We also spend a lot of time teaching student how to cite their sources, and in this process we talk about reliability and the need to have more than one source, no matter where it comes from. I could go on for some time about this. It is the heart of my work with students, but it isn’t something that easily fits into a set of lessons. There are slowly evolving critical lenses that I see my students beginning to use when they are immersed in self directed, passion-based projects. The simple ways of determining credibility just don’t make sense. Who is to say that a podcast is less reliable than a Wikipedia page. A lot depends on your purpose, your critical use, and the other sources that surround any one source. It’s too complicated to teach outside of the ongoing practice of doing research.  – National Writing Project teacher

Usually when we are doing some kind of research in my class I will scaffold it enough where students have a pretty good idea where to go, but the issue also becomes what do they do when they get to where they need to be. I read an interesting study about how people read websites, much different based on age and much different than we read print. I usually bring this study up with the kids so we can have conversations about how to best use our time and find the best information.  – National Writing Project teacher

I usually preface a long-range research assignment with a challenge of my own. I’ll remind them of our discussion about “Is Google Making us Stupid?” where they essentially said that their generation is being dismissed too quickly by the pundits who say they can’t think deeply. When I remind them that a lot of people say that their generation wants instant gratification of information, that raises some hackles. If they’re aware of the obstacles of an in-depth assignment, they’re more prepared to challenge those assumptions. I guess I’d say that a big part of my teaching is attuning my students to how we think as we move through the research process. Make those negative assumptions part of the discussion and a lot of the students see that as a call to move past them. My students aren’t shallow, lazy and stupid, and they don’t want to be thought of as such.  – National Writing Project teacher

Challenges to teaching research skills in today’s digital environment

In general, the AP and NWP teachers in the study feel their students are very receptive to learning effective research skills, but point out that teaching these skills is not without challenges.  By far, the most commonly cited challenge is simply a lack of time to devote to developing effective lessons and teaching skills in class.  Teachers repeatedly noted the difficulty in covering these skills in addition to the other content they are required to cover.  They also note that they themselves must become savvy information consumers before they can impart these skills to their students.

Among other challenges teachers report facing are pay walls separating them and their students from the best information online and digital access issues among their students.  Teachers stressed that the best, most credible resources on the internet are often available only by subscription, thus many schools and students do not have access to what is truly the highest quality information in a particular field.  In addition, they point out that for many of their students, research time is restricted by a lack of internet access at home and/or limited library hours.

The biggest challenge in any AP class in my experience is time. The volume and depth of the material is so extensive that finding the time to teach effective research is very difficult.  – AP US History teacher

Time. There is never enough time to get through all of the standards and spend adequate time teaching research skills also. It takes a lot of time to do justice to teaching research skills.  – AP Biology teacher

Time and access to technology are always hurdles to teaching anything. A lot of times we assign a research assignment and turn the students loose into the world to research on their own. Too often, parents do not even know what is going on in regards to this. Maybe we should work harder on getting them involved in this process. Most students are receptive to methods that will speed their research but not with what will make it better. This is another obstacle to overcome.  – AP US History teacher

The other problem is the…limited number of resources that are available for free; most of the primary resources, most of the better resources have to be paid for by subscription.  – Teacher at College Board School

What [other teacher] said was right on the money I mean where do people go for the most reliable information? One is the Wall Street Journal or extended subscription to the [New York] Times and the Washington Post or whatnot. That’s subscriber’s access. You want to go to The Economist, you’ve got to pay for it. The best sources, you’ve got to pay.  – Teacher at College Board School

If we had laptops in every room, we would be able to champion tat cause of ‘this is how you do research’ more, rather than just showing them our laptop….They have to do the research at home and they’re kind of on their own. We give them pointers, but…  – Teacher at College Board School

The survey also indicates that these teachers face a variety of challenges   in effectively incorporating online content and digital tools into their classrooms, some of which may hinder their ability to teach students how best to conduct research online. Virtually all teachers surveyed report working in a school that employs internet filters (97%), formal policies about cell phone use (97%), and acceptable use policies or AUPs (97%).  The degree to which teachers feel these different policies impact their teaching varies, with internet filters cited most often as having a “major impact” on survey participants’ teaching (32%).  One in five teachers (21%) say cell phone policies have a “major” impact on their teaching, and 16% say the same about their school’s AUP.

Looking more closely at subgroups of the teachers surveyed, it becomes clear that those  teaching in urban areas and those teaching the lowest income students are feeling the impact of these types of restrictions more so than those living in other community types and those teaching students from mainly upper and upper middle income households.  In particular, teachers of students living in poverty are at least  twice as likely  as those teaching the most affluent students to report these policies having a “major” impact on their teaching.

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• Open access
• Published: 26 October 2023

Developing research skills in medical students online using an active research study

• Aziz U. R. Asghar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3735-4449 1 , 2 , 3 ,
• Murat Aksoy   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1512-3524 1 ,
• Alison I. Graham   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7334-9033 2 , 4 &
• Heidi A. Baseler   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0995-8453 2 , 5 , 3  

BMC Medical Education volume  23 , Article number:  805 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Developing research skills and scholarship are key components of medical education. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated that all teaching be delivered online. We introduced an approach to small group teaching in the academic year 2020–2021 online which involved students in an active (ongoing) research study to develop their research skills.

We acquired student feedback to evaluate their perspectives quantitatively on development of research and scholarship skills, teaching content and format, and tutor performance using this teaching approach. In addition, we captured free text responses from both students and tutors on the positives and negatives of our course, and their suggested improvements. We also compared summative assessment marks for the online/active research course (2020–2021) with those obtained from previous (2017–2019) and subsequent (2021–2023) teaching sessions.

Students were largely positive about most aspects of the online course utilising an active research study ( n  = 13). Students agreed that they were able to acquire research skills, particularly related to data analysis, transferable skills, and giving scientific presentations. A one-way ANOVA revealed no significant difference for assessment marks across all five teaching years (two years prior and two years following the online/active research course), indicating that the course achieved the learning outcomes. Students enjoyed the convenience of online teaching and the availability of course resources, but least liked the lack of in-person interaction and laboratory training. Tutors enjoyed the collaborative aspects of online teaching, but least liked the lack of face-to-face interactions with students.

Conclusions

Our study demonstrates that delivering online teaching which involves students in active research engages and motivates them to develop their research and scholarship skills. We recommend that educators consider incorporating a current research study in their undergraduate courses as this can enhance the student learning experience as well as the research project itself.

Peer Review reports

The General Medical Council in the United Kingdom requires that medical students achieve ‘ Professional Knowledge’ learning outcomes related to ‘Clinical research and scholarship’ [ 1 ]. The outcomes stipulate that ‘… newly qualified doctors must be able to apply scientific method and approaches to medical research and integrate these with a range of sources of information used to make decisions for care. ’ Specifically, they must be able to: ‘ Interpret and communicate research evidence in a meaningful way … ’; ‘ Describe the role and value of … quantitative methodological approaches to scientific enquiry ’; ‘ Interpret common statistical tests used in medical research … ’; ‘ Critically appraise a range of research information … as reported in the medical and scientific literature ’; and ‘ Describe basic principles and ethical implications of research governance … ’. One way the Hull York Medical School addresses this requirement is via its compulsory Scholarship and Special Interest Programme (SSIP), equivalent to the Student-Selected Component (SSC) in other medical schools in the United Kingdom.

Evidence for how best to teach research methods to undergraduate medicine students is limited, although there have been attempts to review best practice in this area [ 2 ]. Training in research skills can be integrated into the main curriculum and/or be available through extra-curricular components [ 3 ]. Transferrable research skills such as critical thinking and problem solving can be integrated into the main curriculum relatively easily. However, given the time and resource requirements needed for more authentic research experiences (for example, extended research projects), it may not be possible to offer these to all students. Laidlaw and colleagues suggest that student-selected components are a key space within the medical curriculum in which research skills can be developed [ 3 ].

The SSIP allows all undergraduate medical students to develop their academic research and scholarship skills and is led by tutors who are researchers and experts in their fields. Students select and study a specific area of interest in depth within fields including neuroscience, immunology, pharmacology, nutrition, cancer, psychiatry, palliative care, public health, and health inequalities. At the Hull York Medical School, all students undertake an SSIP module in both years of Phase I (Years 1 and 2) and once in Phase II (Years 3 and 4). The SSIP discussed in this paper was aimed at Year 1 students. SSIP teaching sits alongside prescribed parts of the curriculum which includes lectures, small-group tutorials using problem-based learning, clinical skills, and placements.

The Hull York Medical School is a five-year undergraduate medical programme with an annual intake of ~ 250 students per year. The academic year is divided into three terms. As part of the current SSIP in Term 1, Year 1 students undertake a series of whole-cohort sessions on a variety of general research-related skills which provides a grounding for the discipline-specific SSIP content in Terms 2 and 3. During Term 1, they also submit their preferences from the module choices available. Students are then allocated to one of their preferred modules which they study in Terms 2 and 3. The format of individual modules can vary but must meet the following learning outcomes: 1) introduce all students to the scientific method and different approaches to research; 2) provide the opportunity for students to develop as a scholar, scientist and practitioner; 3) promote the skills and attitudes required for in-depth study; 4) promote skills relevant to the doctor as a professional, including pedagogical skills.

For medical students in Year 1, the content of the current SSIP (from 2019 onwards) in Terms 2 and 3 is delivered to groups of students by staff based within academic research centres in the Hull York Medical School. Term 2 SSIP consists of six hours of teaching which takes place over eight consecutive weeks. Term 3 SSIP consists of six hours of teaching over nine consecutive working days. Students are expected to spend 100 h on the SSIP in total, and non-timetabled time is used for self-directed learning. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the SSIP modules in neuroscience consisted of small group teaching delivered in person and included laboratory-based practical sessions. Laboratory practical sessions have been demonstrated to play a vital role in science education [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. The purpose of our in-person laboratory sessions was to provide students with hands-on experience of neuroscience techniques with the aim of enhancing their understanding of neuroscientific concepts. Tutors acted as expert instructors, consultants to whom students could ask questions, and facilitated group interactions [ 7 , 8 ].

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the rapid move to an online teaching format in higher education institutions, a particular challenge for laboratory-based teaching [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. Consequently, the pandemic prevented the delivery of our SSIP teaching in person for the 2020–2021 academic year. This posed a challenge for course tutors, as the replacement SSIP teaching had to enable students to successfully develop their research and scholarship skills entirely online. An innovative option was to involve the SSIP students in an active research study as a means of delivering their research and scholarship learning outcomes online. We define an ‘active research study’ as an ongoing research investigation in which data are collected and analysed concurrently while the course is being taught. This allows undergraduate students to observe the research process contemporaneously and gives them the opportunity to be involved in data collection and analysis.

Concurrent with SSIP teaching, the authors (AURA, MA, HAB) were researching the effects of COVID-19 on memory function using an online survey and memory quiz, the ‘COVID-19 Online Rapid Objective Neuro-Memory Assessment’ (CORONA) study [ 12 ]. We decided to utilise this investigation for our SSIP teaching. There are potential advantages of using an active research study for our SSIP teaching for both the students and to the research study. The primary advantage for the students would be in enabling them to gain research and scholarship skills in the absence of an in-person laboratory setting. By using an active research study, we hypothesise that students might find this more engaging and exciting than a standard practical exercise where the outcomes are known. Additionally, students could acquire skills and experience in the participant recruitment process. There could also be secondary advantages to the research study itself. For example, as students distributed the survey/memory quiz to their networks, there could be wider survey distribution, thereby increasing the size and demographic breadth of the study sample. Moreover, given the rapid output of COVID-19 research publications at that time, having multiple students engaged in literature searches enabled the timely identification of relevant literature.

The aim of this study was to explore student perceptions of an online SSIP course which involved them in an active research study. Within this context, we used a questionnaire to ask students whether the course developed their research and scholarship skills, and to evaluate the teaching content and format, as well as tutor performance. We captured and analysed student and tutor reflections on the positives and negatives of the online SSIP and possible improvements. To evaluate objectively whether learning outcomes were met successfully in the online/active research study SSIP course (2020–2021), we compared the student SSIP assessment marks across five years which included two years pre-pandemic and two subsequent years. We predicted that using an active research study to deliver SSIP teaching would interest, engage, and motivate the students while meeting the learning outcomes.

SSIP in-person teaching prior to COVID-19 (2017–2019)

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the SSIP in neuroscience consisted of mandatory face-to-face tutorials and laboratory-based sessions delivered by three different tutors. Face-to-face tutorials (~ eight Year 1 students per tutor group) consisted of introduction to research methods, ethics, scientific oral/poster presentation and writing skills. Neuroscience-related practical sessions covered a range of topics, including clinical vision assessment and magnetic resonance imaging, recordings of neuronal oscillations and human electroencephalography. In all practical sessions, students gained live, in-person experience in experimental research design and set-up, data acquisition, analysis, visualisation, and interpretation. Additional supporting resources were provided online using the virtual learning environment (VLE), including timetables, research articles and relevant videos. Summative assessments consisted of scientific essays, posters and oral presentations based on their reading of the background literature and practical work.

SSIP online teaching during COVID-19 (2020–2021)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the online SSIP content was designed to meet the same learning outcomes set out by the General Medical Council as in previous years (under ‘Clinical research and scholarship’) [ 1 ] . SSIP teaching sessions were redesigned and delivered completely online and synchronously using video conferencing via Microsoft Teams, and again, attendance was mandatory. In Term 2, teaching sessions started in January 2021 which coincided with the third national lockdown in England, UK [ 13 ]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Year 1 students undertaking the SSIP had no prior experience with in-person teaching in the medical school. The students were based in two geographical locations (eight students based in Hull and seven based in York) but tutors and their respective student groups were combined, and all eight teaching sessions across Terms 2 and 3 were delivered synchronously online by all three tutors together. Online tutorial sessions covered an introduction to the CORONA research study, research ethics, questionnaire distribution, research methods, data analysis and basic statistics, scientific oral/poster presentation and writing skills. The design of the online teaching sessions drew on best practice in online learning and teaching [ 8 , 14 ]. The first teaching session in Term 2 included icebreaker exercises to engage with students and to replicate the informal environment of in-person small-group sessions. At the start of every online session, tutors encouraged all students to turn on their video cameras and ask questions to facilitate engagement and interaction. Students and tutors could interact via onscreen cameras and the ‘chat’ function in Microsoft Teams to allow students to give immediate feedback, provide reactions (e.g., ‘raised hand’), ask questions, and share their ideas. In one SSIP teaching session, we invited the clinicians involved in the CORONA research study to give their perspectives during an open discussion with the students. Following each online session, tutors had a debriefing session with each other reflecting on what went well and any areas of improvement.

Supporting resources were provided online on Microsoft Teams and the VLE, including timetables, research articles and relevant videos (for example, how to perform statistical tests in Microsoft Excel). Resources available to students in the online/active research course were therefore broadly equivalent to those provided in other years, although the scientific references provided were necessarily different due to the change in research topic. Students gave a formative scientific oral presentation online based on their reading of the background literature and were given written feedback from tutors. The students aided in the distribution of the CORONA survey and memory quiz during the period of the SSIP. Each student was given an individual research hypothesis/data associated with the CORONA study and undertook data analysis and interpretation to address the hypothesis. The summative assessment comprised a written scientific report. Tutors offered one-to-one online sessions to provide data analysis support, and separate sessions giving feedback on draft reports.

Ethics and consent

The study was carried out in conformity with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki, and local ethical approval was given by the Hull York Medical School Ethics Committee (Reference 20 62). All participants were adults aged 18 years old or older and consisted of undergraduate medical students at the Hull York Medical School and their lecturers/tutors. Only participants who gave their active digital written informed consent were allowed to complete the questionnaire. As part of consenting, we informed participants that the questionnaire was voluntary and anonymous. Moreover, it was stated on the consent page of the questionnaire that taking part or not taking part would not in any way affect the SSIP assessment marks. All data collected were non-identifiable.

Questionnaire design and dissemination

The online questionnaire was delivered using the Qualtrics platform accessed via a University of York license (Qualtrics, Provo, UT). The questionnaire was accessible via a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The questionnaire required responses to 19 statements covering four categories: tutor performance (six statements), student skills (four statements), teaching content (four statements) and teaching format (five statements). Questionnaire statements were displayed one question at a time on the screen. Participants were instructed to indicate how much they agreed or disagreed with each statement using a slider scale. Participants were required to drag a circle (initially located at the halfway point) along a horizontal line to their selected point between two opposite labels at either end, ‘Strongly disagree’ (left) and ‘Strongly agree’ (right). There were no numerical labels on the horizontal line. This allowed respondents access to the full range of points between these two labels on the slider scale. Next, they were asked the following four open-ended free text questions to gather further details on student perceptions of the online SSIP and teaching preferences: ‘ What did you enjoy most about the SSIP being taught online?’; ‘What did you least like about the SSIP being taught online?’;‘What could be done to improve the SSIP being taught in an online format?’; ‘Which aspects of the SSIP would you prefer to be taught online and which aspects would you prefer to be taught in person? ’. Questions were created by AURA, MA and HAB based on previous literature [ 15 , 16 , 17 ] and other similar feedback questionnaires used within the Hull York Medical School and then reviewed by all of the authors including AIG who has experience in assessment and feedback research.

The web link to the SSIP feedback questionnaire was disseminated to all 15 Year 1 students on the neuroscience SSIP course. The questionnaire was issued on the last day of the SSIP course, one month prior to the release of the SSIP assessment marks. This was to ensure student response accuracy and avoid recall bias, and also bias based on assessment outcomes. All three SSIP tutors completed only the free text sections of the questionnaire.

Data analysis

The responses to the questionnaire were exported from Qualtrics to Microsoft Excel (version 2210, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, USA). Although not visible to the participants, the response outputs from each of the 19 slider scale statements ranged from 0 to 100 arbitrary numerical units (resolution of 1 unit), where 0 represented ‘Strongly disagree’, and 100 represented ‘Strongly agree’. Means, standard error of the means and ranges were computed across 13 respondents using Excel.

Individual student and tutor free text responses were categorised and analysed using a six-step thematic analysis as described by Braun and Clarke [ 18 ] and Kiger and Varpio [ 19 ]. Two authors (AURA, HAB) used an inductive approach to collaborative coding [ 20 ] where codes were developed whilst working through the data set and there were no preconceptions about themes. We first highlighted free text responses for key words and phrases using Microsoft Word. Next, we looked for patterns and shared meanings in the highlighted key words and phrases, and then grouped them into themes. We counted the number of student responses within each theme and calculated the frequency as a percentage of the total number of students ( n  = 13). All tutor responses were included ( n  = 3). Given the relatively small number of student and staff participants, we thought it appropriate and important to report and consider all the viewpoints.

For the neuroscience SSIP for the period 2017–2019, marks were derived from summative assessments of essays in Term 1, posters in Term 2, and oral presentations in Term 3. From academic year 2019–2020 and for all subsequent years to date, the assessment format of the SSIP was changed by the Hull York Medical School, whereby the SSIP course marks were derived from a single summative assessment of a written scientific report/essay in Term 3. However, summative assessments were suspended in the 2019–2020 academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the SSIP teaching in the years 2017–2019, the marks for Terms 1, 2 and 3 were averaged to produce a single summative mark for each student. Importantly, assessments for all years (2017–2023) were evaluated considering the same elements related to scientific background, data analysis/visualisation, and interpretation of the results in the context of the published literature. The same marking scale and rubric were used for SSIP assessments across all years: 1 = Fail ( Failed to meet many of the intended learning outcomes; work was deficient in critical aspects and demonstrated significant lack of understanding; lacked a secure basis in relevant facts and analysis; lacked a good structure. ), 2 = Pass ( Achieved the intended learning outcomes; used a sufficient range of evidence and displayed a good grasp of analytical issues and concepts; produced well-structured work. ), and 3 = Excellent ( Achieved all intended learning outcomes; used a comprehensive range of relevant materials and analyses; showed in-depth understanding of all key issues and concepts and clear evidence of critical and synthetic skills. ). A one-way ANOVA was used to compare mean summative marks across the SSIP teaching years 2017–2023, except the year 2019–2020 when no student summative assessments took place.

Student quantitative perceptions to questionnaire statements

Thirteen out of 15 students completed the questionnaire (87%); all who completed did so within two days of dissemination. Figure  1 shows student responses to 19 statements covering four categories: tutor performance, student skills, teaching content and teaching format. The mean scores for all the questionnaire statements exceeded 59/100 (although some individual responses were lower) indicating that most students agreed with the statements (Fig.  1 ).

Questionnaire statements arranged in rank order from highest (strongly agree) to lowest (strongly disagree) scores. The filled black circles represent the mean ± standard error of the mean. Parentheses after each questionnaire statement give the number of students who scored that statement > 50 (range: neutral to strongly agree). Square brackets give the range of participant responses (minimum and maximum values)

Students most strongly agreed with statements associated within the tutor performance category (Fig.  1 ). The highest mean scores ( most strongly agree ) were given for statements related to the level of tutor support (96.6 ± 2.5), tutor knowledge of course material (93.9 ± 3.1), the ability of tutors to present material in an engaging manner (92.3 ± 2.9), and whether tutors gave appropriate feedback on reports (91.8 ± 4.4). Relatively lower mean agreement scores were given for tutors making course materials available in good time (85.9 ± 6.7), and provision of appropriate feedback on online oral presentations (79.5 ± 8.7).

Within the student skills category, students agreed on average that the online/active research course enabled them to improve data analysis skills (91.9 ± 4.4), gain transferable skills (90.4 ± 4.3), and oral presentation skills (87.9 ± 3.7). The average scores were lower when asked whether they enjoyed the data analysis aspects of the SSIP course online (73.2 ± 6.7).

For the teaching content category, on average students found the topics interesting (90.2 ± 3.3), understood the content (87.8 ± 3.8), engaged well with the content (87.2 ± 3.8) and were motivated to learn more about the topic (84.9 ± 3.7).

Students agreed least with statements within the online teaching format category, related to enjoyment of the online SSIP course (63.2 ± 4.8) and undertaking another SSIP online (59.4 ± 7.1). On average, students agreed that they were looking forward to a laboratory-based SSIP (88.9 ± 4.9), thinking at the point of allocation that it would have been held in-person and not in an online format. On average, students agreed that the SSIP teaching was presented in a structured way (83.5 ± 7.1) and they engaged well with the online teaching format (81.5 ± 4.0).

Student qualitative perceptions of online course teaching

Table 1 lists five themes identified from free text student responses to the question, ‘ What did you enjoy most about the SSIP being taught online? ’ The most frequent theme for this question was related to convenience (54%), followed by use of online resources (23%) and use of screen sharing (15%). Other students enjoyed being able to experience research (8%) and communication/interaction online (8%). Table 2 lists three themes identified for the question ‘ What did you least like about the SSIP being taught online? ’ The most frequent theme for this question was related to communication/interaction (46%), followed by laboratory skills (31%) and engagement (23%). Table 3 lists four themes identified for the question ‘ What could be done to improve the SSIP being taught in an online format? ’ The most frequent theme for this question was related to resources (31%), followed by engagement (23%). A smaller number of students gave responses related to communication/interaction and laboratory skills (15% each). Table 4 lists six themes identified for the question ‘ What aspects of the SSIP would you prefer to be taught online …? ’ and six themes identified for ‘ … and which aspects would you prefer to be taught in person? ’. The most frequent themes for online teaching were related to content and data analysis (23% each), and for in-person teaching, the most frequent student responses were related to presentation skills (23%) and communication/interaction (15%).

Tutor qualitative perceptions of online course teaching

As there were only three tutors, we have included all their responses to the free text questions (Tables 5 , 6 , 7 and 8 ). The four themes identified for the question, ‘ What did you enjoy most about the SSIP being taught online? ’ were related to communication and interaction, collaborative teaching, convenience, and novelty (Table 5 ). Communication and interaction, laboratory skills and preparation time were the three themes identified for the question, ‘ What did you least like about the SSIP being taught online? ’ (Table 6 ). Only one theme, communication and interaction, was identified for the question, ‘What could be done to improve the SSIP being taught in an online format?’ (Table 7 ). Therefore, communication and interaction were a common theme throughout tutor responses to these three questions. Four themes were identified for preferences for online teaching (data analysis, academic writing, presentation skills and content) and two themes for in-person teaching (laboratory skills and general preference) (Table 8 ).

Comparison of academic assessment marks

Student attendance overall for the online/active research SSIP was 97.5%; out of eight mandatory teaching sessions for 15 students (8 sessions × 15 students = 120), a total of 117/120 attended with only three absences over the course. Assignment completion was 100%, and every student submitted their assignments within the deadline set. As an objective measure to determine whether learning outcomes were met during the year of the study (2020–2021), we compared summative assessment marks across five teaching years (2017–2023) which included two years prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and two years after the study year (Fig.  2 ). A one-way ANOVA revealed no significant difference for summative marks across all five years, F(4, 60) = 1.84, p  = 0.133, eta squared = 0.109. All students achieved a Pass or Excellent mark with no Fails.

Plot showing the mean assessment marks for the SSIP teaching spanning the years 2017–2023. The vertical dotted line represents the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A one-way ANOVA revealed no significant difference across the years ( p  > 0.05). *There were no SSIP assessments for the year 2019–2020. Marks: 1 = Fail, 2 = Pass, 3 = Excellent

Learning outcomes and developing student research skills

In this study we were interested in investigating student perceptions of a course delivered online which involved them in an active research study. The student responses to questionnaire statements indicate that despite major changes from in-person laboratory-based SSIP teaching to the fully online format using an active research study, students were largely positive about most aspects of the redesigned course delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though students agreed least with the statements related to enjoying the online teaching format, and whether they would undertake another SSIP online, the average agreement scores were still above 50%. While students expressed a preference for a laboratory-based course, they nonetheless reported that they developed valuable research skills from the online/active research course. Students agreed that they were able to acquire research skills, particularly related to data analysis, transferable skills, and giving an oral scientific presentation. However, they found the online data analysis component comparatively less enjoyable.

Assessments required students to demonstrate research skills gained, including researching and consolidating the relevant scientific literature, data analysis and visualisation, and interpretation of the results in the context of the field. In addition, students presented an overview of their selected topic based on their review of the literature, and generated a scientific report based on their data analysis, demonstrating their presentation and written research skills. SSIP summative assessment marks for the online/active research course in 2020–2021 were comparable to marks in earlier and later years, providing evidence that students achieved the learning outcomes and successfully acquired research skills.

Benefits of using an active research study to engage and motivate students

Our survey results show that using an active research study led to high student engagement with the online SSIP content and motivated them to learn more about the topic. There are several reasons that could explain why our students found the online/active research SSIP course engaging and motivating. Firstly, the choice of topic, the effects of COVID-19 on memory, may have been of special interest because it was timely and of current global concern. Most students agreed (a score of ~ 90%) that the topic was interesting, and that the teaching content was understandable. One student stated that the most enjoyable part of the online teaching was “Being able to see real-life research”. Secondly, students had the opportunity to contribute to an ongoing research study by distributing the survey online to recruit participants and by performing preliminary data analyses. Thirdly , the small group size (15 students to three tutors, a student-staff ratio of 5:1) may have encouraged greater student-to-tutor and student-to-student interactions (approximately half the students were located in Hull and half in York). In a previous study, some UK medical students reported that small group sizes elevated student engagement [ 16 ]. Indeed, one student based in York reported that the most enjoyable aspect of the online teaching was, “Being able to meet some Hull-based students.” Fourthly, students may have been more engaged because they were especially pleased with tutor performance. Indeed, the three statements with highest agreement from the students were that they felt well supported by tutors, that tutors were knowledgeable about the course and presented material in an engaging manner. Given that tutors were invested in the active research study, this may have been reflected in their knowledge of and enthusiasm for the topic.

In line with our results, a study of first-year undergraduate medical students demonstrated that early experiences of successful engagement with authentic research practices increases subsequent motivation for research [ 21 ]. Advice given by Ommering et al. states the importance of providing students with authentic research experiences, in particular addressing authentic research questions of clinical importance where possible [ 22 ]. The active research study used in the current investigation was timely and clinically relevant given the impact of COVID-19 on cognition, particularly memory function [ 12 ]. Engaging medical students with authentic research experiences early in their career is a potential way to reverse the decline in the clinical academic (also called ‘physician scientist’) workforce [ 23 ].

Learning context is important. Embedding an active research study in research methods training aligns with the principles of situated learning [ 24 ]. Lave and Wenger describe how learners learn through legitimate peripheral participation and benefit from exposure to a community of practice [ 25 ]. Through small-group discussions with expert tutors and exposure to real-world data, the students in this study began to integrate into the research community (five of the students from this group have actively sought to continue their involvement with research post-SSIP). Indeed, in their ‘Twelve tips’ guide to encouraging student engagement in academic medicine, Lawson McLean et al. encourage involving students in the practicalities of research [ 26 ]. Involving students in authentic ongoing research has been shown to benefit students in other practical disciplines such as language translation, with the potential to enhance the proficiency of students both as researchers and as reflective practitioners [ 27 ].

Benefits to research

Involving undergraduates had a direct benefit to our research study. For example, by distributing the research survey/memory quiz link to their networks, they aided in participant recruitment. In addition, they helped identify relevant references from the scientific literature and summarised them in their oral presentations. Another benefit of involving students was that they provided a diversity of perspectives, experiences and previously acquired skills to our research study. Based on these benefits, we recommend that educators consider involving undergraduate students in an active research study. Tutors may first need to consider the appropriateness of the research project for undergraduate teaching purposes. A second consideration is to ensure that ethical approval allows for student involvement in the research study, including aspects related to safety and confidentiality. Thirdly, the timing of the teaching sessions needs to be coordinated within the context of the research study, e.g., data collection. An alternative would be to involve students only in secondary data analysis, which would allow for greater flexibility. Overall, using an active research study not only advances student research skills, but can also bring value to the research project itself.

Benefits of the online teaching format

In a study investigating online clinical medicine teaching, faculty members reported high satisfaction with student engagement levels and the quality of student interactions for the online technology-enhanced sessions but low satisfaction with the in-person traditional clinical sessions [ 28 ]. In our current study, student and tutor free text responses indicated that they particularly enjoyed the convenience of learning/working online, the availability and use of online resources and the use of online video technology (screen sharing). Because it was online, it meant it was easier for students and tutors to attend without the need to commute, which was important because attendance for the SSIP was mandatory. Student attendance for our online SSIP teaching was high (97.5%), which is similar to the 100% attendance reported by Kay & Pasarica in a study using online teaching in medical education where the attendance was also mandatory [ 28 ]. This study reported that 100% of their students completed the online assignments ( n  = 27), which aligns with the 100% assignment completion rate in our online SSIP teaching ( n  = 15). This shows that for mandatory online teaching sessions, attendance and assignment completion rates are high.

Another aspect of online teaching that students liked was the availability of online resources which they could view before or after online sessions. For example, we made online resources available including the documents associated with the research study, literature references and video recordings on how to analyse the data using statistics. Our approach to the online sessions was in line with recommendations outlined by Ohnigian and colleagues [ 29 ]. For example, we made use of the chat function and encouraged students to turn their cameras on to ask questions and interact with the tutors and other students. Some students mentioned that they enjoyed most the way tutors used screen sharing function in Teams to demonstrate specific concepts, such as data analysis.

From the tutors’ perspective, they enjoyed the novelty and collaborative aspects of online teaching. For example, one tutor stated that they enjoyed the pre- and post-meeting sessions with the other course tutors. Another tutor pointed out that a benefit of working online with tutors at different locations was to gain from their diverse perspectives and teaching styles. Although these positives are both possible with in-person teaching, the online format made collaboration across geographical boundaries easier. Another advantage of conducting the course online is that clinicians were able to contribute to one of our online teaching sessions, which would have been much more difficult to arrange in person due to their demanding schedules.

Disadvantages of online teaching

There were aspects that students and tutors were less positive about the online teaching. Both students and tutors highlighted the lack of face-to-face interactions. Students were not able to meet tutors and other members of the group in person. Both students and tutors were concerned that the online format reduced student engagement. The lack of interaction with fellow students has been noted in a previous study which highlighted problems with student motivation, concentration and asking questions online [ 16 ]. Since the SSIP students often turned off their cameras and microphones, tutors also expressed concern that they were less engaged talking to a blank screen. Using a phenomenological approach, Schwenck & Pryor found that it was important for students to have cameras switched on rather than looking at a blank screen to feel engaged and connected [ 30 ]. Although there are several reasons why students do not turn their video cameras on, including it being considered the norm, and concerns about physical appearance or screen background, it may be possible to use strategies such as active learning techniques to encourage camera usage [ 31 ]. Cheung and colleagues found that students’ perceptions of online teaching were more favourable when video cameras were turned on so, although students are reluctant to do so, as educators, we should support students to turn their cameras on in sessions [ 32 ].

When students were asked which aspects of the SSIP they would prefer to be taught online and which aspects they would prefer to be taught in person, there was, in many cases, little agreement amongst students. For example, some students would prefer data analysis and statistics to be taught online whereas others would prefer these subjects to be taught in person. Similarly, some students think oral presentations should be done online, some think they should be done in person. This reflects the heterogenous nature of the student body and tutors should be mindful of this. Tutors could cater for the needs of a diverse group by offering multiple formats of engagement to increase accessibility. For instance, data analysis classes could alternate between classes being held online and in person.

Both students and tutors mentioned that they would have benefited from the experiences of learning and teaching in a physical laboratory space. One important point was that students were not able to develop laboratory skills that could best be learned using a hands-on, practical approach. One student captured this by stating, ‘ I was looking forward to the practical elements in the lab which could not be done online’. Colthorpe & Ainscough similarly found that although students believe the online teaching to be helpful, the lack of in-person laboratory classes and face-to-face interactions negatively affected their learning experience [ 11 ]. In our study, two students suggested that a compromise could be to demonstrate online some of the practical skills that would normally be done in the laboratory. One limitation of our study is that as the Year 1 students started during the COVID-19 pandemic, they did not have any prior experience with in-person laboratory teaching within the medical curriculum. Therefore, they were not able to compare the SSIP teaching we delivered online with a face-to-face taught laboratory course. Moreover, since the SSIP teaching coincided with a national lockdown, this may have impacted on how well students engaged with the online course. Because students were mandated to stay at home, they could have seen the online SSIP teaching as one of their only opportunities to gain research experience and interact with students/tutors, which may have inclined them to respond more favourably to our questionnaire.

One tutor expressed concern that more time was needed to prepare materials for the online sessions compared to in person. Given that tutors had to become familiar with new online software and features to deliver online teaching, this will have increased their preparation time. In line with this, a survey of academics found that more time is needed to prepare for online teaching compared to on-campus teaching [ 33 ].

Students and tutors both suggested future improvements to the online SSIP teaching. For example, recommendations included making the online course more interactive, keeping cameras on, using breakout rooms and the chat feature more, incorporating student-led sessions and keeping sessions shorter. When students and tutors were asked which aspects they preferred to be taught online versus in person, several students and tutors suggested that content and data analysis could be taught online, while laboratory skills could be taught in person.

Limitations

One limitation of the current study is the relatively small number of student ( n  = 13) and tutor ( n  = 3) participants. Ours is not the first study to consider the views of small numbers of medical students engaging with innovative teaching practices. For example, Margolin et al. considered the views of 13 medical students to make recommendations for online urologic education during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 34 ], and Blackard et al. piloted an online research training course with 27 medical students [ 35 ]. Our current study, which was undertaken in the context of small group teaching, provides data with initial indications that student perceptions were positive for teaching research skills online using an active research study during the COVID-19 pandemic. The hope is that our study encourages future studies using an active research study in larger cohorts across different medical schools and disciplines.

Both of the researchers (AURA and HAB) who coded the free text responses were involved in teaching and assessing the SSIP module and were investigators in the active research study. Whilst their familiarity with both the educational and research aspects of the project provided valuable context to the coding, we acknowledge that an independent researcher may have coded the free text comments differently.

Student engagement and motivation scores may have been affected by both the online teaching format and involvement in an active research study. We cannot disentangle the separate effects of each component in the current investigation. Each component would have to be evaluated in separate student groups, but such a study could lead to a lack of teaching parity across groups. A crossover design in which all students are exposed to each component consecutively could be another possible approach to extract the independent contributions of the online teaching versus the active research component.

Taken together, our results indicate that a course can be delivered online using an active research study that will enable medical students to acquire research and scholarship skills, thereby fulfilling the ‘Clinical research and scholarship’ learning outcomes of the General Medical Council. More generally, this approach could be utilised as a model to deliver online teaching in other disciplines requiring the development of student research skills. It would enhance course accessibility and accommodate the needs of student groups who find it challenging to attend in-person courses such as students based outside the university, or those with physical disabilities or caring responsibilities. Moreover, online teaching with an active research component could encourage greater collaboration between instructors and researchers, as there would be fewer time and space constraints, thereby enriching the student and tutor experiences.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Scholarship and Special Interest Programme

Student-Selected Component

Coronavirus Disease 2019

Virtual Learning Environment

COVID-19 Online Rapid Objective Neuro-Memory Assessment

Uniform Resource Locator

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the participants in the study and thank the students on the SSIP course.

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Contributions

AURA conceptualised and designed the study, collected and analysed data and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. MA helped design the study and provided significant technical support for survey design, data collection and analysis. AIG helped design the survey, provided feedback and advice on data analysis, and contributed to writing and editing the manuscript. HAB conceptualised and designed the study, collected, and analysed data and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Heidi A. Baseler .

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The study was carried out in conformity with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki, and local ethical approval was given by the Hull York Medical School Ethics Committee (Reference 20 62). All participants were adults aged 18 years old or older and consisted of undergraduate medical students at the Hull York Medical School and their lecturers/tutors. Only participants who gave their active digital written informed consent were allowed to complete the questionnaire. As part of consenting, we informed participants that the questionnaire was voluntary and anonymous. Moreover, it was stated on the consent page of the questionnaire that taking part or not taking part would not in any way affect students’ assessment marks. All data collected were non-identifiable.

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Asghar, A.U.R., Aksoy, M., Graham, A.I. et al. Developing research skills in medical students online using an active research study. BMC Med Educ 23 , 805 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-023-04781-5

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Can a New Reading Assessment Tool Help Improve Literacy Rates?

Commentary / 12 April 2024

The Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR) bridges the lab, the classroom, and the community

In order to understand this article, long ago you went through the laborious (and heroic) process of learning to read . You began by mastering decoding skills—matching sounds to letters, and recognizing words. From there, you conquered comprehension skills, recognizing that words form sentences that create paragraphs like this one. This is an oversimplification, and there are many steps involved in each of these stages, but from a developmental perspective, reading is an iterative skill that builds on mastering previous skills and knowledge.

What if you had missed learning a fundamental skill along the way? And what if none of your teachers or caregivers recognized that gap before you moved on to the next school year? Reading, and learning itself, would become a source of frustration and heartache for you and those trying to teach you. If there were no intervention, your issues would compound—reading skills in early elementary school are predictive of a wide range of outcomes, including high school graduation, college attendance, socioeconomic status, likelihood of encountering the criminal justice system, and long-term health. 

In the U.S., approximately two thirds of students are reading below grade level, and the statistics are particularly distressing among Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. 

In addition, it’s estimated that about 10–15% of children have persistent struggles with reading due to dyslexia. How can we get teachers and administrators the tools they need to meaningfully improve the prospects of the more than 33 million kids who need help with reading?

The Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR), a project of the Stanford University Reading & Dyslexia Research Program and a recipient of Stage 2: Test Solutions funding from Stanford Impact Labs, is an online assessment platform and research project that aims to make reading assessment free, fun to take, and useful for teachers, administrators, and researchers. 

“Our overarching vision is to create a bridge between research and practice—as we work to develop more efficient and rigorously validated measures of reading development,” said Jason D. Yeatman , Associate Professor of Education and Pediatrics and the ROAR Program Director. “We want to make sure this research stays grounded in real-world problems faced by teachers and administrators and reflects the true diversity of learners at each stage of development. It’s a new model that bridges the lab, classroom, and community.”

Carrie Townley-Flores , Director of Research & Partnerships with ROAR, says, “Stanford Impact Labs funding has helped us tremendously in terms of scaling. We’re in a labor-intensive phase that requires simultaneous work on refining the technology and building relationships with partners so we can iterate the best tool possible and ultimately help as many kids as we can.” 

Improving and Expanding Assessment

ROAR improves on traditional reading assessment in a number of ways. It’s easy to administer, and it has validated assessments for years K–12. By offering a variety of test options, it provides more detailed and reliable results than other standardized assessments and the validation studies underlying the assessments are published in open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journals. Additionally, it’s free, which allows more schools to access the program and encourages flexibility with testing. For example, it makes it easy to test a middle school or high school student for foundational skills, which are typically not assessed after third grade. Students also report it is fun to engage with -- which goes a long way.

Ryland Adzich, project manager for ROAR at San Francisco City Academy (SFCA), a small private school of 60 kids who live in the city's notoriously under-resourced Tenderloin district, said that when SFCA administered the ROAR for the first time in the fall of 2023, students loved it. “The ROAR is set up like a video game, where a character like a monkey or a lion talks to you and guides you through the test. To the students, it felt like a fun, interactive game. This helped promote a positive testing environment where students could perform at their best.”

Adzich also added, “The test is also available in Spanish, and given that more than half our students are Hispanic, we had a handful take the ROAR in Spanish. This allowed us to see that these students don’t have trouble with reading skills, they need a different kind of support. We also tested our middle school kids and identified some areas of struggle that surprised us.” 

SFCA will be administering tests again, along with a new test on letters for younger kids, in the spring of 2024. Using the data from the two testing rounds, along with support from ROAR research coordinators, SFCA’s teachers and administrators will then decide how to implement interventions into the curriculum for the following school year. 

Creating a Virtuous Feedback Cycle

“Our research-practice partnership model brings collaborators into each stage of the research process and it has allowed us to bring innovations to stakeholders much faster than the typical laboratory research model,” said Yeatman. 

“Key to this process is sharing data with the schools and getting feedback from them on the tool so we can iterate and improve on what we’re offering,” said Townley-Flores. For example, the ROAR team recently created interactive score reports to be even more customizable and user friendly. “We got a lot of feedback from schools about what data would be useful and how best to visualize it. This feedback was critical to how we rebuilt the reporting system.”

Feedback to the lab has also resulted in the development of new assessment modules (e.g., letters, morphology), and is expanding the reach of the tool. Rebecca Sutherland , Associate Director of Research with Reading Reimagined, one of ROAR’s partners, explained, “ROAR is going to partner with an expert in Black American English to undertake a rigorous and innovative item analysis to reduce the tests' bias. Too often, standardized literacy assessments unreasonably penalize dialect speakers and underestimate their language and reading skills. This will be a game changer, showing the wider reading assessment field that linguistic bias reduction can and should be done.” 

Through this virtuous feedback cycle, ROAR is looking to continue to improve the tool with the goal of reaching 500,000 students within two years and seeing measurable improvement in reading proficiency, including reduced racial, ethnic, and economic achievement disparities in schools that use ROAR, within 5 to 10 years.

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Bridging the labor mismatch in US construction

The US construction sector seems set for a jobs boom. The US Bipartisan Infrastructure Law  projects $550 billion of new infrastructure investment over the next decade, which our modeling suggests could create 3.2 million new jobs across the nonresidential construction value chain. That’s approximately a 30 percent increase in the overall US nonresidential construction workforce, which would mean 300,000 to 600,000 new workers entering the sector—every year.

This is a big ask for an industry that is already struggling to find the people it needs. In October 2021, 402,000 construction positions 1 Included both nonresidential and residential construction openings. Further granularity is not available from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. remained unfilled at the end of the month, the second-highest level recorded since data collection began in December 2000.

In this environment, wages have already increased significantly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting intense competition for employees, with employers offering higher pay or other nonwage benefits. Between December 2019 and 2021, construction wages grew by 7.9 percent. 2 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Competition from other sectors for the same pool of labor is heating up, too. For example, over the same period, transportation and warehousing wages grew by 12.6 percent. The prospect of higher pay and better working conditions is already tempting experienced workers away from construction and into these and other sectors.

No end in sight

Today’s mismatches are likely to persist because of structural shifts in the labor market. The relationship between job openings and unemployment has departed from historical trends. In January 2022—two years from the start of the pandemic—the US unemployment rate stood at 4.0 percent, close to its prepandemic level of 3.5 percent. Job openings remained exceptionally high, however, with 10.9 million unfilled positions as of the end of December 2021, compared with 5.9 million in December 2019.

This labor supply imbalance has multiple root causes, some shorter term and cyclical while others are more structural in nature. For example, the pandemic brought forward the retirements of many in the baby-boomer generation, with an estimated 3.2 million leaving the workforce in 2020—over a million more than in any year before 2016. According to the American Opportunity Survey , among those who are unemployed, concerns about physical health, mental health, and lack of childcare remain the dominant impediments preventing reentry into the workforce. Research on the “Great Attrition/Great Attraction”  also highlights the importance of nonwage components of the employee value proposition. Record job openings and quit rates highlight employees’ growing emphasis on feeling valued by their organization, supportive management, and flexibility and autonomy at work.

Additionally, the pipeline of new construction workers is not flowing as freely as it once did. Training programs have been slow to restart operations after pandemic-driven safety concerns led to their suspension the spring of 2020. The industry is finding it more difficult to attract the international workforce that has been an important source of talent for engineering, design, and contracting activities. Net migration has been falling since 2016, a trend accelerated by COVID-19 travel restrictions. 3 Population estimates, US Census Bureau. Between 2016 and 2021, net migration declined steadily from 1.06 million to 244,000.

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Impact on projects.

The interconnected nature of the construction value chain means that the labor mismatch generates knock-on effects across the project life cycle and supply chain. By late 2021, project owners were reporting that up to 25 percent of material deliveries to sites were either late or incomplete. In project execution, the combination of higher hourly rates, premiums and incentives, and overtime payments was resulting in overall labor costs as much as double prepandemic levels. Meanwhile, difficulty accessing skilled and experienced people was leading some owners to report project delays related to issues around the quality and productivity of on-site work.

In some US cities and their suburbs, wage growth has surpassed the level seen in core Gulf Coast counties at the height of the shale oil boom. Labor shortages in the shale sector drove wages up by 5 to 10 percent and were correlated with steep drops in productivity. The productivity of some tasks fell by 40 percent or more during shale construction peaks (exhibit), and overall productivity declined by about 40 percent per year when labor was in short supply. This forced owners to extend project timelines by 20 to 25 percent. The impact of a long-term, nationwide labor mismatch might be even more severe than the shale industry’s experience, given that oil companies were able to attract new workers from around the country.

Getting back into balance

The labor mismatch in the construction sector is bad today, and set to get worse. To avoid a decade or more of rising costs, falling productivity, and ever-increasing project delays, companies in the industry should consider thoughtful actions now.

Those actions could address three components of the challenge. First, companies could do everything possible to maximize productivity through measures aimed at improving efficiency across the value chain. Second, they could expand the pool of available labor by doubling down on accessing diverse talent and working harder to retain the employees already in their organization. Finally, they could consider making labor a strategic priority, with senior leadership attention within companies.

Improving construction productivity

Companies could access a range of levers to reduce the labor content required per job and drive to improve productivity in project development and delivery. Those levers involve changes to project designs and fresh thinking about when, where, and how work is done.

Improvements in productivity occur long before work starts on the ground. They include rigorous control of project scope, design simplification, and standardization. Increasing the use of off-site and modular construction , for example, could allow projects to capture multiple benefits, including accelerated design cycles; the greater productivity associated with industrialized, factory floor manufacturing techniques; automation; and less time spent on site.

Smarter execution management, enabled by digital technologies and analytics techniques could drive better, faster decision making during project delivery. Real-time data collection, for example, gives project managers earlier, more detailed insights about progress, allowing them to intervene more effectively to maintain productivity and keep projects on track. Intelligent simulation software allows teams to evaluate hundreds of thousands of possible critical paths, identifying approaches that could be more efficient or less risky than the conventional wisdom.

Lean construction is another proven way to drive significant and sustainable productivity improvements. Establishing a centralized, continuous improvement engine could enhance on-site execution through integrated planning, performance management, and waste elimination. Key stakeholders across the project work with a common, agreed set of key performance indicators. That allows them to address issues in real time and facilitates collaboration to reduce waste and variability work. Capability building across the planning and construction teams could help team members understand and adopt lean construction practices.

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Reimagining talent.

To ensure access to the skills they need, construction sector companies can accelerate the onboarding of recruits, boost retention by revisiting what employees want beyond wages, and invest more in developing their pipelines of future workers.

In the near term, employers could prioritize review of job applications and reduce the number of steps in both the interview and onboarding process. In the medium term, both the public and private sectors could look to reduce hiring timelines and shift to a skills-based approach when hiring.

In the medium term, retaining current staff and attracting new talent will both turn on understanding of what employees value beyond wages. Competitive wages are now table stakes, so employees are thinking about a broader set of benefits and workplace characteristics when making decisions about where to work. Research on attrition in the postpandemic workplace  has shown that they are placing more emphasis on autonomy, flexibility, support, and upward mobility.

In the longer term, the construction industry can consider a new approach to talent attraction, development, and retention. Talent acquisition could begin early, through partnerships with educational institutions including universities, colleges, and high schools. These partnerships could boost awareness of the possibilities of a career in the sector and ensure future employees have appropriate skills prior to onboarding.

Companies could also look more widely for potential recruits, considering individuals who have taken alternative educational paths, such as technical degrees or hands-on experience. The Rework America Alliance , a Markle-led coalition in which McKinsey is a partner, illustrates the importance of skills-based, rather than credential-based, hiring. A skills-based perspective  is key to tapping into the talents of the 106 million workers who have built capabilities through experience but whose talents are often unrecognized because they don’t have a four-year college degree. A skills-based approach could be complemented by reimagining apprenticeships to bring younger students and vocational talent into the industry at an earlier stage in their careers.

Employers could consider working with a range of nontraditional sources of talent, including veteran-transition programs, formerly incarcerated individuals, and others. Homeboy Industries provides an example of the local impact, effectiveness, and potential of working with often overlooked population segments. Moreover, identifying and attracting talent from outside the traditional paths used by the construction industry could also help it to increase the diversity of its workforce. Today, 88 percent of the sector’s workforce is White and 89 percent is male. 4 Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey Database, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed March 10, 2022.

Looking at labor through a strategic lens

Labor and skills shortages have the potential to slow growth and erode profitability across the construction value chain. For C-suites, there’s no other single issue that could protect against significant cost erosion. Companies could consider establishing a systematic talent acquisition and retention program, led by a C-level executive and a core part of the CEO agenda. That program could first be tasked with building a robust fact base on current and emerging labor needs and availability gaps. It could then identify a bold set of initiatives that address labor-related issues across the value chain. This exercise starts in the boardroom, but it doesn’t stop there. Leadership will likely need to be increasingly present in the field and on the job site too, celebrating and recognizing top talent throughout the organization.

The labor challenge extends well beyond corporate boundaries. Since the successful delivery of a project could be jeopardized by labor shortages in a single value-chain participant, project owners and contractors may want to adapt the structure of project relationships and contracts. Moving away from traditional contracting methods to collaborative contracts , for example, allows participants to share market risks and opportunities as a project evolves, rather than baking in worst-case estimates at the outset of negotiations.

The US construction sector is poised to revitalize, replace, and expand the country’s infrastructure. Done right, that will power inclusive growth and set up the economy for success in the 21st century. To do so, the sector will need to address its labor challenges. That calls for the application of a diverse set of tools and approaches to create better jobs, get the most out of its people, and optimize agility and collaboration across the value chain.

Garo Hovnanian is a partner in McKinsey’s Philadelphia office, Ryan Luby is a senior knowledge expert in the New York office, and Shannon Peloquin is a partner in the Bay Area office.

The authors wish to thank Tim Bacon, Luis Campos, Roberto Charron, Justin Dahl, Rebecca de Sa, Bonnie Dowling, Bryan Hancock, Rawad Hasrouni, Adi Kumar, Jonathan Law, Michael Neary, Nikhil Patel, Gaby Pierre, Jose Maria Quiros, Kurt Schoeffler, Shubham Singhal, Stephanie Stefanski, Jennifer Volz, and Jonathan Ward for their contributions to this article.

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