Volunteerism: Using Your Research Skills to Help Society

Volunteering is a great way for you to use your research skills to benefit society. Often volunteering is frowned upon in some circles of society as, "working for free," meaning that you derive no benefits from it personally and should not do it. However, this is an extremely narrow-minded viewpoint as you do derive benefits (though not monetary) from volunteerism. Furthermore, you can help other people and society as a whole which in my opinion should be the main goal of any academic. This post will discuss some of the benefits to you and society of volunteering as well as suggestions on how to volunteer.

Personal Benefits of Volunteering

1. You improve your skill set

Volunteering can allow you to learn new skills and add to your skill set. Depending on what you do, you can acquire valuable skills (at no cost to you other than your time). You do not have to pay thousands of dollar to a university to get valuable skills, they can be acquired through many different avenues and voluntary service is one of them.

2. Opportunity to Practice. 

Employing your skills in service of society can allow you to gain much needed practice and experience, which will help keep them sharp. Experience will look good on your resume and the practice will help you master your research skills.

3. Networking Opportunity

The value of networking in today's competitive environment cannot be overstated. Through volunteer work, you can make valuable connections which will help you later on in life. The person volunteering with you to do research could just as easily be a potential employer or a link to a vital employment opportunity in the future.

4. Resume Padding

Voluntary service looks good on your resume or application to university. While it should not be the main goal, voluntary service can spruce up your resume because it demonstrates that you have a good work ethic to your potential employer. Many top universities also require it for entry so you may want to clear a space your schedule for volunteer work.

Societal Benefits of Volunteering

1. Allows you to help people who really need it but can't afford it. 

One of the great benefits of volunteering which allows those of us with a messianic complex to appease ourselves is the opportunity to contribute to the betterment of those in need. Altruism in its purest form can bring its own rewards (the cliched warm fuzzy feeling inside) and giving help to those in need without the expectation of anything in return is one of the purest.

2. Enables Society to be bettered.

Betterment of society should be the overarching goal of any researcher. This is one way in which you could achieve that goal. Our economic system is set up to give society what it wants which is what people are willing to pay for. Often though, there are things society needs that no one is willing to pay for. For example, no one might be willing to pay for a demographic survey of a remote village or mapping of a vulnerable coastline. This where volunteerism can help society as a whole. When you volunteer society will be bettered as a result. 

Where and How can You Volunteer?

So now that you know of the benefits of volunteering, I bet you're ready to run out and begin a crusade of goodwill for the benefit of humanity right now? While that's all well and good you need to look for specific opportunities to volunteer.

1.Corporations

Volunteering for corporation (also called unpaid internships) can allow you to get a foot in the door which may lead to a future job. Be careful though as many companies simply use unpaid internships as free labour. There was a segment on this done by TruTV's show, "Adam Ruins Everything," see the link below:

https://youtu.be/S35X8lGxGPI

Make sure you are gaining actual research experience before accepting any position and not simply fetching someone's coffee or running mail from office to office. This is probably the one instance where you might want to be selfish when volunteering.

2.NGO's

Non-governmental organisations offer good opportunities to volunteer for a good cause. You could find yourself doing research related to environmental protection or social justice should those be your forte. Be warned however that some NGO's may have an agenda to promote and may force you to compromise your integrity and bias your research to support this agenda. Be wary of any organisation that possess too much zeal for their cause. Objectivity typically goes out the window with them.  

3.Universities

Universities may look for volunteer researchers to assist on the projects being conducted by their faculty and students. This gives you an opportunity to work alongside academic researchers and gain valuable insight and experience from them. Think of these types of volunteer assignments as free university courses. They are a good opportunity which should be seized upon when able.

4.Community Organisations

Community groups may want volunteer researchers for various community projects. While it may not give you the exposure of the previous options, it can be a good avenue for an amateur researcher to get a start as these projects tend to be smaller scale and less technically complex than the others. Beware of community politics though as this can hinder your research.

Conclusion

To sum up, volunteerism can have many benefits both to the individual and the collective. In my honest opinion it is something that our society needs more of. Every geographer should be willing to volunteer as it is our duty to help understand and fix the many ills that plague society whether we are paid for that or not.

Thanks for Reading,

Barindra

References

Adam Ruins Everything - Why Most Internships Are Actually Illegal. 2015. Video. United States: TruTV.

Choosing a Research Topic

Every geographer, nay every researcher will face this question at some point in their career, perhaps multiple times:

WHAT SHOULD I RESEARCH ?

This post will help you make that decision. It will offer advice to help you decide on what you should research and for choosing a good topic. Before you decide on what to research, there are some important questions which you need to ask yourself first when deciding.

Am I Passionate About this Topic?

In research, passion can be a double-edged sword. It can be a good or a bad thing depending on the amount of it that you have. Being passionate about a topic can provide you with the drive you need to navigate the often arduous and frustrating task that is a research project. Passion can keep you from going insane from the stress of completing a project i.e. the sleepless nights, delays, red tape etc.Yes passion can be a very good thing in this sense. Keep in mind that you will in some cases be dedicating multiple years of your life to this project. I have heard stories of people who have become stuck with a project they don't like and are not passionate about and this can be a very distressing situation to be in.
At the same time too much passion can be a bad thing. Being too passionate about something can bias your view on that topic. For example many people (myself included) are passionate about environmental protection but this might give you a skewed, radical view on the subject and stop you from considering other important aspects of your study such as the practicality of your recommendations.
An infamous incident where too much passion for a topic played a role was the case of Dr. J Robert Openheimer, aka. the father of the atomic bomb.  He was once forced by his adviser to study a topic that he hated (experimental physics) and attempted to murder him as a result (Gladwell 2008). Somehow he got out of it with only probation (Gladwell 2008). Please do not attempt to murder your supervisor if they stick you with a topic you don't like. As enticing as the thought may appear to you at that time, you will most likely not get out of it with only probation.

Is this Topic Worth Studying?

A second important question you need to ask yourself after you have selected a topic is if its worth studying. What is its value to the academic community and to society as a whole? YOU might be passionate about studying the diameter of Prairie Dog's toenails in North America, but that doesn't mean its worth studying. A good topic should add something of value to society and should be something that can help improve it. This is not just an egalitarian consideration, but a practical one as well. Consider the fact that you have to apply for funding of research from third parties (unless you're Tony Stark and can fund your own research). People will not just give their money to you unless they see the value in your work. It is a cold truth that not everything is worth studying, even if you may be passionate about it.

Can I Reasonably Study this Topic?

Another practical question you should ask is whether or not you could reasonably study the topic chosen. Is it within your current skillset? If not, can you learn the required skills? Never attempt to do a project which is too ambitious for you. Stick within the limits of your own abilities. If you are unable to do something, then don't attempt to. There is no shame in admitting that you have limitations. You are human after all and we all do. You may become overwhelmed by the work if you lack the ability to handle it.
However, this is not meant to discourage you from accepting a challenge. If it is a new field and you want to challenge yourself to do it and are sure that you can handle it then by all means jump right in. Challenges help us grow in life and you should not shy away from one out of fear. But at the same time, do not take stupid risks. Always remember, "Calm seas do not make skilled sailors."

Do I have the Resources to Conduct this Research?

Perhaps the most practical of all the questions you need to ask yourself when deciding on a research topic is whether or not you have the access to resources to do this project. This can be broken down into three categories:

1.Funding

Can you afford to pay for your research? If not can you source funding from a third party like an NGO or corporation? If you answered the first question yes, then you should have no problem (also call me, I think we can be friends). However if you do have to source funding from a third-party, be wary of the fact that that funding comes with strings attached. Entities like states, corporations and NGO's almost always have an agenda and vested interests to protect. You may lose control of your research and in extreme cases be forced to compromise your integrity. The Union of Concerned scientists published a report on this, link below.

http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/how-corporations-corrupt-science.html

2.Equipment

Do you have access to the equipment needed to do your project? Can you acquire it? Does it exist? That last one might seem ridiculous but you should consider these questions. Without the right equipment your project will fail. For example, you may want to conduct a LiDAR survey of your country but may not have access to an aircraft equipped with a LiDAR system and may not be able to afford it. You may want to map planets in the Andromeda Galaxy, but the technology for you to do this has not been invented yet. Be realistic.

3.Access

Do you have access to the study site? Do you have access to any secondary data which you may need? Not having access to these critical elements can cripple your research efforts. If your study site is within a protected or secure area eg. a nature preserve or military base you may have to navigate a gauntlet of red-tape to get to it. You may even be denied permission. Some companies may not be willing to share data for various reasons (See my previous post on red-tape for hints with dealing with this).

Conclusion

A research project can probably be considered analogous to raising a child. At times it can be difficult, maddening and a huge challenge. But there are moments when it is rewarding and enjoyable and when you hand over a completed project it feels very much like handing over your baby. Just as with child-rearing, you should be ABSOLUTELY SURE that you want to do it before embarking upon the project. Hopefully this post helped you make up your mind.

Thanks for Reading,

Barindra

References

Gladwell, Malcolm. 2008. Outliers. New York: Little, Brown and Co.

"How Corporations Corrupt Science At The Public's Expense (2012)". 2016. Union Of Concerned Scientists. http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/how-corporations-corrupt-science.html.

Tips for Conducting a Community Survey

As geographers, we are often required to conduct surveys in communities to gauge their views on a particular issue such as poverty, climate change or other topics. Surveys are a great way to gain insight into the views of a population and designing them was already covered in a previous post. In this post I'd like to focus on tips for conducting community surveys.

Know your Research Area:

Conduct background research on the community before going in. Use GIS software to get the layout of the community. Learn as much history and local customs that you can. Know the demographic aspects of your community. Ethnic composition, religion even the political views of the majority population can be important to your survey. So be thorough in your background research. It can go a long way in influencing your success.

Develop a Clear, Systematic Plan for Sampling: 

While in theory it may be great to use stratified sampling where you select community members to do surveys, more often than not you will find a large amount of people who will simply refuse to answer your survey, which can destroy your pre-defined sampling strategy. Additionally, it is often difficult to get information on the population of a community so it may not be possible to use a stratified sampling approach in the field as determining a representative sample will be impossible. Working from the national averages which may be available is not a good idea on the community scale as age, gender and other demographic distributions may not be homogenous throughout the country.
Quite often, we are forced to resort to simply, "taking what we can get," when it comes to sampling due to the above factors. Still there are methods to be systematic about it. Below are two of the methods I use for sampling.

Method 1:

Split the community into several, roughly equal parts and select an equal amount of participants from each of them. This is a variation on the cluster sampling technique ("Cluster Sampling" 2016) where instead of only selecting a subset of the clusters for use in sampling, one uses all.

For Example:

During a recent project I did on communities surrounding the Camden Airfield in Couva, Trinidad, I split the communities into four parts (Balmain, Central Park, Exchange and Mcbean) based on their sizes and bearing from the airfield (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1:- Map of the Survey Area Around Camden.

Now bear in mind that a lot of the times your population is unknown so therefore in order to get an amount for each cluster one should use a, "take what you get approach," in the first cluster and then use that a benchmark for the others.

Method 2:

Method two is almost identical to method one, except instead of aiming for a minimum number of participants in each cluster, you use a time limit for sampling instead. For example, you decide that you spend 6 hours maximum in each cluster. While less systematic than the previous method, it may be better to use this method if you are pressed for time (or if the sun happens to be blazing hot that day).

Try to Avoid a Skewed Sample:

Sample skewing is likely to occur if you simply take a random approach. You run the risk of skewing the sample in favour of some parameter eg. age if you collect too much names from a specific age category or gender if you collect too much from one particular gender group. You should try to keep your sample representative.
To avoid this, keep a running check on your surveys. Try to see if you collected too many or too little in a category. Compare your dataset to a previous, recent dataset for that community like a census or previous study to see how it stacks up. It should reveal whether your sample is skewed or not and allow you to take corrective action by being more discerning in your participant selection.
There is a caveat to this though in that it assumes you know the distribution of demographic characteristics. As mentioned before, this may not be the case for that community and you may be, "working blind." Attempting to equalize the sample by taking equal numbers in each category may not always be the best approach as the community may be naturally skewed and doing this may actually make your sample less representative of the community. Again, using a national census for comparison may not be the best idea either as the distribution may not be homogeneous throughout the country may not hold at the community level.
The best approach in this case if you can't source comparison data is to simply accept the possibility that your sample may be skewed. You have no way of determining how accurate it is or not. Its one of the truisms of doing research.

Chart a Designated Route:

Use maps or GIS software to plot a route for you to follow throughout the community. This will help you make sure you cover it in its entirety and prevent you from getting lost. It might be a good idea to mark out points where you have passed as you go along to avoid back-tracking. You might want to keep a sketch map of your route on you, or your Google Maps open on your phone if you have access to data or wi-fi.

Safety First:

BE SAFE! Before venturing out into the field make sure you locate the nearest police station, hospital and fire station. Have a fully-charged cellphone with sufficient credit on you at all times should you need it. Know emergency contact numbers by heart (should you lose your phone). Make sure that at least one other person knows that you are out in the field and is able to maintain contact with you at all times. If possible, get a friend to accompany you, two heads are always better than one (plus you have someone to help carry equipment). Maintain situational awareness at all times and be wary of distractions and anything out of the ordinary. Don't like something about the area or feel threatened by someone? LEAVE!!! Research is not worth compromising your personal safety!

Clearly Identify Yourself:

Make sure to carry proper identification on you at all times. This may seem obvious but is often overlooked. Proper identification would give any respondent you meet some sense of security and will make them distrust you less (not trust you more as people are typically distrustful of strangers randomly approaching them with clipboards). If you are conducting research as part of a university course, then carry your student ID. National ID such as driver's permit may also be appropriate in lieu of this.
Identification will also help you out should you be stopped by law enforcement and questioned for skulking about and area in a suspicious manner. You will be able to almost instantly legitimize your presence there.

Be Polite:

One would be surprised as to how far being nice to people will get you in life. Be polite to your participants. Greet them first, do not launch into the purpose of your research immediately. This will make you seem like less of an impersonal robot. Remember these are people you are dealing with, not lab mice. Aside from being the nice thing to do, being polite to people can pay off as it may actually sway them into responding to your survey.

Respect Local Cultural Norms and Customs:

This tip is more applicable if operating in a foreign country. Respecting cultural norms is not only good manners, but it stands to reason that if you offend your participants in any way you may not get the co-operation you need. Diplomacy is an asset to any researcher. That being said, there are limits to what you do to accommodate local customs especially if they contradict your ethical mandates as a researcher . For example, some tribes in South America require you to drink alcohol as part of any greeting. Ethically, you should not be drinking while conducting research so you may not want to respect that particular local custom.

Conclusion:

To summarize, community surveys can be complicated affairs. There is no one standard formula for conducting a community survey and every situation is unique and presents a different set of challenges. You cannot prepare for every scenario and you may have to rely on your intuition in the field to make split-second decisions demanded by a situation you did not anticipate.

Thanks for Reading,

Barindra

References

"Cluster Sampling". 2016. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_sampling.

Red Tape and Bureaucracy: Dealing with these Barriers to Research

Research can be a rather rewarding way for you to give back to your community, country or society. It allows you to employ your skills in the service of others and to help make the world a little better place in your own way. However, what happens when your offer of help is refused? What happens when you can't get access to information you need to conduct research due to red tape? This topic was not taught explicitly in any of the research methodology courses I have attended and an inexperienced researcher may find themselves at a loss when dealing with it. This post will attempt to provide some sort of comfort to them by dealing with this topic is some detail. It will cover the reasons organisations may give for doing this and strategies for coping with it as a researcher.

Reasons for Bureaucracy:

The reasons for blocking access to information can be varied and this list is by no means exhaustive. An organisation may have a completely legitimate reason for blocking access to its information. At the same time you may be stonewalled because your research may reveal some unscrupulous dealings on the part of members of the organisation that they'd rather no one know about. This list is in descending order of rationality. 

1. They may be bound by legislation

Bear in mind that it may not necessarily be the organisation's fault they are blocking you. They could want to share the information with you, but may be bound to keep it confidential by external regulation. Military and intelligence organisations which are involved in national security are prime examples of where this might occur. There is little that can be done in this case by either party so it is best to just accept it and move on. 

2. They may be obligated to protect their clients' privacy

Particularly applicable to microdata ("OECD Glossary Of Statistical Terms - Statistical Microdata Definition" 2016) (i.e. data on individuals like names, addresses etc. ) the organisation may not want to share the information requested with you because they are ethically obligated to protect their clients' privacy. For example, a department store may not want to share sensitive information about its customers like items the purchased or spending habits with researchers because this can be considered a breach of confidence. 

3. The information requested may be proprietary  

Trade secrets are closely guarded by organisations, particularly if they are perceived to give them a competitive edge in the market. Organisations such as Coca Cola ("Coca-Cola Formula" 2016) and KFC ("KFC Original Recipe" 2016) guard the secret recipes to their products rather astutely, some companies may not be willing divulge aspects of their manufacturing process and the list goes on. While they are within their legal rights to do so, the ethics of this decision occupies a bit of a grey area. This doesn't apply so much to fried chicken or soft-drinks, but what if the information requested is the formula for a life-saving drug required to save millions? Unfortunately, you as a researcher do not have to power to fight this, so you will just have to live with it.

4. The information requested may show evidence of improper conduct 

Corruption is a societal constant anywhere on this planet. It can be as simple as giving a friend a job they are not qualified for or as complex as altering survey results to fit a political agenda. Despicable acts like these are an unfortunate mainstay of human nature. Should you request information that may reveal corruption or improper conduct on the part of a person or organisation, your request will probably be denied. Generally, people who have been involved in such activity do not wish to be caught and as such, will not be willing to release the information to you if this could potentially lead to them being caught.

Dealing with Bureaucracy:

So what can you do? Your research has been blocked by some gaudy bureaucrat with a god complex. How do you proceed from here? Well while you may be limited in terms of power, there are several strategies which you can employ to get around issues such as these. Each of them however have some drawbacks and it is up to your personal judgement which to select.

1. Change your research methodology

This may be your only option, changing your research methodology to omit the data you cannot obtain. While this could be disappointing in that you will not be able to get all your intended research done, you will at least have something at the end of the day, which can help you if you have to publish something  such as a thesis or research project. However, this course of action tends to increase in difficulty the further along in the research process you are. Additionally, if your research topic is highly specialised (eg. A study centred on a particular organisation or community) this may not be an option.

2. Invoke freedom of information requests

Some countries (such as the US ("The Freedom Of Information Act: U.S. Department Of State" 2016) and my very own T&T ("GORTT-Freedom Of Information Unit" 2016)) have a legal mandate of freedom of information and one can possibly use this route to gain access to the required information. Be warned however that given the legislative particularities this may not be applicable to the organisation. Some organisations are immune to freedom of information requests and the process can be so drawn out and tedious that it becomes impractical.

3. Obtain the required information through alternative methods

You can try to use alternative legal and ethical (this does not include bribing a clerk to give you the information or kidnapping someone's spouse to extort information out of them or similar acts which may get you thrown in jail) methods of obtaining information. For example, can't get access to a compound or area to do geotagging? Try using a publicly available GIS software like Google Earth or Openstreetmap to give you a layout of the area instead. It may not be as precise, but it will be better than nothing. You should also be okay legally as the information is in the public domain and hypothetically accessible to anyone. Unfortunately, there may not be alternative channels available to you and you would have to do without.

Conclusion:

Speaking from personal experience, not being able to access the information needed for your research can be a disappointment. However, you need to bare in mind that there may be good reasons for this information being withheld from you and as a researcher you have to respect an individual's or entity's right to do so, despite your personal views on the matter. In an ideal world, information would be freely accessible to all, but we do not live in an ideal world. We live in one complicated by red-tape and bureaucracy which as a researcher you will need to learn to navigate.

Thanks for Reading,

Barindra

References

"Coca-Cola Formula". 2016. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula.

"KFC Original Recipe". 2016. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFC_Original_Recipe.

"GORTT-Freedom Of Information Unit". 2016. Foia.Gov.Tt. http://www.foia.gov.tt/.

"OECD Glossary Of Statistical Terms - Statistical Microdata Definition". 2016. Stats.Oecd.Org. https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=1656.

"The Freedom Of Information Act: U.S. Department Of State". 2016. Foia.State.Gov. https://foia.state.gov/Learn/FOIA.aspx.

Tips for Using Google Scholar

One of the most convenient and useful tools that I've come across has to be Google Scholar. For those unfamiliar with it, Google Scholar is a free service provided by Google (the lord and savior of university students. Praise be to the almighty Google!!!) which allows access to a universe of free online scholarly articles on just about any subject you can think of.

Fig. 1:- Google Scholar Home Page (Scholar.google.com 2016)

Usefulness of Google Scholar:

As we're all familiar with, almost every project at university and any piece of academic research will usually be considered invalid unless it references credible sources. Usually this means scholarly articles. We all know that accessing these scholarly articles can be quite the chore as it involves either going into the university library and searching for printed copies or using a cumbersome online database and shifting through it for hours. You can subscribe to journals and databases on your own if you want, but this often costs a substantial amount of money, which may not be ideal for the student researcher on a budget.

Google Scholar will allow you freely search for these articles from any location with an internet connection. The convenience of this cannot be overstated as you often do not have to interrupt your research to go to the library to look something up for a last minute reference. And unlike some of the other databases, you can do this without having to log in to a separate website or go to the library at your school. This post will show you how to use Google Scholar effectively by taking you through an example search.

Narrowing Your Search to Relevant Articles:

First thing you'd want to do is word your search properly. You should be as specific as possible with your wording in order to narrow the list of articles you have to search through. This can save you from browsing through a slew of irrelevant articles before finding what you want.

For Example: I've grown tired of paying a premium for bacon and have decided to undertake a research project which will aim to develop cheaper methods of farming pigs. I'm looking for articles on pig farming techniques for the literature review so I entered the keyword, "pig," into the search bar:

Fig. 2:- Google Scholar Results for, "Pig," Keyword (Scholar.google.com 2016)

Notice that I got 2510000 results. Also notice that the first article, highlighted in orange, is possibly relevant to the topic at hand (pig farming) but the articles highlighted in green are probably not. Clearly I need to narrow my search more.

Fig. 3:-Google Scholar Results for, "Pig Farming Techniques," Keywords (Scholar.google.com 2016)

Now look at the amount of results I got only 63500 a huge reduction with only the addition of two more words. Additionally, the articles at a glance appear to be more relevant to my research topic.

In addition to wording a query properly, you can narrow your results further by selecting a relevant time range using the menu on the left-hand side of the screen. Generally speaking, one should try to avoid articles more than five years old when doing a literature review as the older an article, the less current its research becomes. So with this in mind, I will now reduce the range of my article to five years (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4:- Adjusting the Range of the Articles (Scholar.google.com 2016)

Since there was no default setting, I had to enter a custom range for the search. Now look at the results of the new range

Fig 5:- Google Scholar Search With adjusted Time Range (Scholar.google.com 2016)

Now the results are down to 16400, a much more manageable number.

One final step you can take to narrow your search even further, will be to un-check the, "include patents," and, "include citations," boxes on the left-hand panel. Citations simply refer to citations of an article in another article which may add unnecessary clutter to your search results and patents refer to patents which have been filed across the world, which may not be useful to you. By un-checking these boxes, the results now reduce to 16000, much smaller than the previous pool.

Selecting Articles:

While many articles appear in Google Scholar searches, not all of them are free-access and as such selecting them will usually lead you to a payment page. Fortunately the ever thoughtful developers (or wizards depending on your level of technical expertise and whether or not you believe in magic) have added a feature to help you with this.

Fig. 6:- Google Scholar Article which is Freely Available (Scholar.google.com 2016)

The red box in (Fig. 6) highlights the download link provided by Google if the article is freely available. Just click on the link and you'll be taken straight to the article.

To make sure the article is relevant to your topic without reading through the entire thing you might want to read the abstract first. An abstract is a paragraph or two located at the top of the article which summarizes its contents. If you've read the abstract and determined that the article is useful to you after all, then go ahead and download it.

A word of caution though, do not simply download and read a series of articles and then try to shoehorn then together into a literature review, rather take a more targeted approach. Try to find articles which are related to each other by showing progress over time in a particular research area or providing two different perspectives on the same theory. While it may look impressive to you if you summarize a bunch of junk articles and call it a Literature Review, your colleagues and lecturer may feel differently about this.

Limitations of Google Scholar:

As with many of the tools on the list, Google Scholar does have some limitations. The most obvious of which is that it doesn't provide access to articles which are not free or have not been released into the creative commons.  This may prevent access to some of the best or most current research in the field you're interested in.

Additionally, the search function can be a bit sensitive at times and may necessitate being as specific as possible with your wording lest you be bombarded with a slew of articles.

Also, it sometimes might show up irrelevant articles, which can get annoying if you click on a few in a row and you have a paper due the next day and are just now rushing it down (shame on you for leaving your assignments that late if you've ever done that).

Conclusion:

Despite some shortcomings, Google scholar is a useful tool and one of many free services provided by the virtual Swiss army knife that is Google for the student or researcher to use. I highly recommend it and much prefer it to some of the other databases out there.

Thanks for Reading,

Barindra

References

Scholar.google.com,. 2016. "Google Scholar". https://scholar.google.com/.

Tips for Questionnaire Design

A useful tool for the researcher is the questionnaire. It provides a simple and relatively rapid method of gathering data on people's views. A poorly designed questionnaire however can potentially work against the researcher. So in this post I've decided to share some of the tips I've learned through experience when designing questionnaires. This is by no means an exhaustive list and is based entirely on my own opinions and experience. Nevertheless, when designing your research questionnaire, several things need to be kept in mind :

Purpose of Research and Relevance of Questions:

As you design the questionnaire always ask yourself:

WHAT AM I RESEARCHING?

Simply put this means you should only include questions on the survey which are relevant to the research question at hand. For example, if  you're researching the views of a community on a new shopping mall being constructed in their town a question on their favorite flavor of ice-cream may not be relevant to the point at hand (unless of course you plan to open an ice-cream shop in the mall then ask away).
Irrelevant questions can have several disadvantageous effects on your survey such as increasing the length of time it takes to complete a survey (which may annoy participants) and giving you the researcher extra work to do because you'd have to analyse and sort, "junk data," which are irrelevant to your research question.

Complexity and Length of Survey:

You should keep this acronym in mind when designing your survey:

KISS: KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE

First and foremost, remember to keep it SHORT. Long questionnaires can seem tedious to participants and they may become annoyed and quit before finishing it or simply, "fill in the blanks," autonomously without any thought going into their answers in an attempt to expedite what they view as an excruciating process. The general rule of thumb I use is no more than 20 questions in total. Open ended questions also tend to require more time and effort than close ended ones so you may want to limit their application to say no more than 25% of the questions on the survey.

When conducting community research, quite often your participants will not be academics and may not have the same appreciation for your expansive vocabulary and literary finesse that your colleagues do. Furthermore, utilizing complicated wording can make your questionnaire more difficult to interpret, which may affect the integrity of your data. Additionally, you may annoy or appear aloof to your participants if your questionnaire is hard to read.
So how does one word a question? Well you should use SIMPLE language that the layperson will easily comprehend. At the risk of sounding elitist, assume that your participants only possess rudimentary literary skills and let your wording reflect this assumption.

For Example: Instead of wording a question like this:

Is one of the opinion that the current endeavor to erect a commercial centre within the community will have positive implications for those residing in the immediate vicinity of the proposed development? 

Try wording it like this:

Do you believe that the mall will be beneficial to your community? 

Notice the differences between the two wordings. The first question is long and drawn out, using more complicated language than the context demands, whereas the second question gets straight to the point. Additionally, the more personal nature of the second question (using terms like, "you," and, "your," instead of, "one.") makes you seem less like an impersonal robot out to experiment on people of the community and more like a friendly-neighborhood researcher who views the people of the community as equals and respects them as such. This simple change in wording can have a tremendous effect on the public's perception of you as a researcher.

Use the Appropriate Question Format:

The format of your question should be given consideration. Appropriate question format can make data collection simpler for you.

For Example: lets look at a question asking participants their age. You might be tempted to format it like this:

Age:___

This will require participants to state their exact age on the questionnaire. But do you really need their exact age? It might be more practical, particularly if dealing with a large sample population, to instead format the question as a categorical one confining ages to various ranges as stated below:

Age

 Under 10 []  10-19 []   20-29 []   30-39 []   40-49 []   50-59 []   60 and Over []

Sorting the data in ranges reduces variability and makes it easier to chart the data (see the section on categorization below).

You should also consider whether or not to use open or close-ended question formats

Open-ended questions are great for qualitative research with data that are highly variable in nature and can give greater insight into a participant's viewpoints in comparison to close-ended questions but they also take longer to fill out and are more difficult to interpret and analyse. These are best used if you are trying to gain someone's views on a particular topic as it allows for them to freely express their views and allows for the wide range of answers you are certain to get with such a question.

For Example: lets say we want to gauge people's views on the shopping mall and we format the question as a close-ended, multiple choice one:

What are Your Views on the Shopping Mall?

Will bring jobs to the community []

Will be convenient for residents []

Will improve access to cheaper goods for the community []

Will provide local consumers with more choice []

Will serve as a social centre for the community []

Will destroy the environment []

Will bring negative cultural influences into the community []

Will encourage juvenile delinquency []

Will drive local stores out of business [] 

Notice that the above question has ten possible responses, which might be impractical. Additionally, you have forced your participants into a limited range of answers which they may feel compelled to adhere to. It may be more appropriate to format the question as an open ended one (leaving ample room for your participants to provide a comprehensive answer):

What are your views on the mall?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Close-ended questions are excellent for quantitative research  with limited data variability and are easier to fill out and analyse but by confining your participants to a set range of responses, you may miss parts of their full view on a topic. Close-ended questions are best used when collecting quantitative data which can be confined to set categories such as age and sex.

Another aspect of question design is categorization. Categorization comes into play when the question at hand requires participants to select an answer from a range.

For Example: In this question about ages are categorized into 10 year categories

Age

 Under 10 []  10-19 []   20-29 []   30-39 []   40-49 []   50-59 []   60 and Over []

 The number of the categories of the question is usually directly related to sample size, Generally speaking, the larger the sample size the smaller the scale. It becomes impractical from an analytical standpoint to use smaller categories as sample size increases.

For Example: Consider the following scenarios.

Using a sample size of 100 people between the ages of 18-40, it might be appropriate to break the respondents into single age categories (Fig. 1):

Fig. 1:-Bar Graph of Sample Data for Scenario One

We could easily analyse the chart at this scale. At a brief glance, we can see that the survey population appears to be more numerous below the age of 25.
But what about applying the same technique to a sample size of 400 people between the ages of 10-60 (Fig. 2)?

Fig. 2:-Bar Graph of Sample Data for Scenario Two

Obviously these data are much more difficult to understand and analyse. In cases like these you may want to consider aggregating the data into categories of about 10 years or so as shown below (Fig. 3):

Fig. 3:-Aggregated Bar Graph of Sample Data for Scenario 2

Notice how much less cluttered the bar graph appears and how much easier it is to visually analyse the data when compared to the previous

Avoid Redundant Questions:

Adding redundant questions to a questionnaire will needlessly increase its length, give you more data than you need to sift through and again may annoy your participants (people tend to get easily annoyed by questionnaires for some reason).
While redundancy has similar effects to irrelevancy as mentioned before, it is important to note the differences between both concepts. Irrelevant questions are those which are not related to the research question whereas redundant questions are related to the research question but are repetitive in nature.

For example, a redundant pair of questions may sound like this:

Do you believe that the shopping mall will be beneficial to the community?

Yes []  No[]

and

Do you believe that the shopping mall will harm the community? 

Yes []  No []

Those two questions could be easily combined into a single one as shown below:

What impact do you believe the shopping mall will mostly have on the community?

Positive []   Negative []   No Impact []

Attempt to Avoid Potentially Offensive Questions:

It should go without saying that one should not offend the participants of a survey should they wish for their co-operation. It may be difficult however to avoid offending everyone owing to the fact that people may be offended by apparently mundane questions (I once had a participant who was offended by a question asking about their age). While there is no definitive list as to what topics should be avoided in order to not offend your participants GENERALLY speaking one should avoid questions on controversial issues such as Race, Religion and Politics and avoid contentious issues such as Abortion and Same-sex Marriage.
However your research might pertain to these topics at hand and if so you should keep in mind that your questionnaire might offend some people. It is also entirely possible that you might inadvertently offend people as well. In short just prepare for the possibility for a participant becoming offended and angry with you for asking a certain question.

Try to Word Questions Objectively:

When wording questions try to remain as objective as possible in order to give the impression of neutrality. If questions are worded in a certain way they may give the impression of bias which may affect people's willingness to answer truthfully.

For Example: Using the aforementioned shopping mall scenario, lets say we want to find out the resident's views on the mall. A wording like the one below may convey some sort of bias:

Do you believe that the mall will have a positive impact on the residents of the area?

Yes []    No []

Notice that the question mentions a positive impact which might give the impression that we as a researcher are in support of the mall. Additionally, confining them to two set boxes in a close ended question may not tell the whole story as some people might have mixed views on the project. A more appropriate and neutral question format is:

What are your views on the mall?

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Notice that this question is open-ended and worded more neutrally than the first as it does not specify a particular viewpoint. Additionally it is now more appropriate for people to convey mixed viewpoints on the situation.

Testing:

Finally, after you have designed your survey, it is important that you pilot test it in a controlled setting before letting it loose in the field. Much like a commercial airliner needs to pass certification trials before being allowed to carry passengers, so to must your survey. Handout samples of your survey to testers, trying to include a wide sample base. Lecturers, friends, family can all be used as Guinea Pigs for your survey (don't give it to an actual Guinea Pig though as they tend to be jerks that simply chew up the paper and not give you a straight answer). Note their opinions and modify your survey based on their feedback. Were they able to interpret it easily? Did it answer the research question? Was it tedious for them? These are all questions you should asking your testers. Do not be discouraged if their feedback is negative, look upon it as an opportunity to improve your questionnaire and be grateful that potential problems were caught in testing before application in the field.

With all that said, I'd just like to conclude this post by saying that there is no one correct method to designing a questionnaire and it is usually heavily related to the research question at hand. Feel free to modify or even ignore some of the suggestions that I made here and experiment on your own as I am by no means an expert on the matter. It is my sincere hope that you found this post helpful and informative.

Thanks for Reading,

Barindra

Application Review: NASA's Eyes

Description:

NASA's Eyes, in a nutshell is a free application published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) which allows the user to connect with several NASA databases and visualise a plethora of data collected by the organisation from its spacecraft and other platforms over the years. The data are presented to in a user-friendly graphical interface and are divided into three main categories (Fig.1).

                                                  Fig.1:-NASA's Eyes Home Screen (NASA's Eyes 2015)

Application to Geography:

While the "Eyes on the Solar System," and, "Eyes on Exoplanets," features are fun (and a wee bit addictive) to play around with, Geographers will find the, "Eyes on the Earth," feature rather useful. The tool features real time tracking of orbiting spacecraft like the International Space Station (ISS), Lansat 8 and Lansat 7 (Fig.2).

                                     Fig. 2:- NASA's Eyes Real Time Orbital Tracking  (NASA's Eyes 2015)

Additionally, the application allows you to display remotely sensed data gathered by some of these orbital platforms in a visually appealing and simple to understand interface.  These are referred to as planetary, "vital signs,"  and include data such as daytime air temperatures, carbon dioxide levels and global sea levels among others (Figs. 3-5).

                                      Fig. 3:- Daytime Air Temperature Display (NASA's Eyes 2015)

                               Fig. 4:- Global Carbon Dioxide Levels Display (NASA's Eyes 2015)

                                     Fig. 5:- Sea Level Variation Display (NASA's Eyes 2015)


Limitations:

Some lagging might occur on slower PC's or with slower internet connections, additionally, the application requires a network connection to function. The data are also not downloadable from the application, and the user is restricted to a visual representation only.

Conclusion:

I must say that I personally rather enjoy this piece of software and highly recommend it to anyone. This application can be useful for visualizing many of the phenomena we geographers study and will certainly brighten up any class or lecture session.  NASA did an excellent job with this application and deserves a commendation.

Thanks for reading,

Barindra

Download Link:

http://eyes.nasa.gov/index.html

References

NASA’s Eyes,. 2016. "NASA’S Eyes". http://eyes.nasa.gov/index.html.

NASA's Eyes. 2015. Pasadena, California: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Welcome and Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog.

My name is Barindra Vidal Sawh and I have recently graduated from the University of the West Indies St Augustine's Geography program. I started this blog with the intention of sharing tips, tools and techniques which I have utilized in previous research projects with my fellow Geographers.
As we all know funding can be hard to come by for research, especially for amateur or student researchers. This blog aims to disseminate information about relatively inexpensive (mostly free) methods that researchers can utilize.  I do thank you all for your patronage in advance and look forward to the comments, I certainly hope that readers find this blog useful.

Barindra