Applied Human Geography - GEOG 2260 Reflection
3 Things I Know for Certain About Human Geography Research:
Throughout the duration of this Applied Human Geography course, I have learned many things that I will take with me and use in the future. To start, I would like to discuss what qualitative research is. This course has given me the opportunity to truly understand what qualitative research is in comparison to quantitative research. Qualitative research is used to investigate and study the experiences that people have in regards to space. It âis concerned with elucidating human environments and human experiencesâ (Hay, 2016, p.5). Unlike quantitative methods, qualitative research requires the researcher to understand in depth why they are receiving the answers they are. A qualitative research method that shows this would be in depth interviews with individuals. I am also able to understand when it is most appropriate to conduct qualitative research. As a researcher, it is important to understand when and why to use specific research methods.
Secondly, I would like to discuss the ethics criteria that I have learned about throughout this course. Qualitative research of any kind requires an ethics approval from whatever institution or organization that a researcher is performing for. An ethics approval ensures that both the participant and researchers involved will be treated with respect and conforming to the same guidelines. An ethics approval typically states that the participant is free to answer when he/she feels comfortable and in a way that they choose. For this course, I was required to get an ethics approval before interviewing a professor here at the university. The rules of this ethics outline stated that the professor was to answer questions by her own free will, she did not have to answer any question she felt uncomfortable with, and that the interview would be no longer than 15 minutes unless she chooses otherwise. Â
Finally, the last thing I learned that I would like to discuss is my invisible backpack. This is a term used to define a researcherâs influence within a research project. For example, in class, we learned about researchers travelling to less fortunate communities where they exhibit privileges that those community members might not even have access to. Being able to travel to these communities and then return home is an aspect of an invisible backpack. This ties in with critical reflexivity because critical reflexivity ensures that researchers put themselves completely aside for the greater good of the research project. Critical reflexivity requires one to be unbiased and ethical while conducting research. Â
3 Things I am Still Confused By:
While learning many new things, it has become apparent that there are many things I am still confused by. To start, I will discuss organizing information. During the course, we were assigned to code our sources used for the digital storytelling project. At first, I thought that we would create a legend of words and we would highlight them where they are used in the source. I learned that instead of only highlighting the word, we were to highlight the section of the text that the word was referring to (Hay, 2016, p.377). Now, I am still confused on how to pick out this information. I am unsure of how to classify which information is more important than others when they both regard the same word. Â
Secondly, another thing I am still confused about has to do with ethical consideration. I am aware that all research conducted must be ethically approved prior to starting. However, I am unable to determine what is ethical and what is not ethical in some situations. In class, we watched a research video starring Agafia Lykov, a woman living alone in the Siberian mountains. The research team went in to conduct their research and at first, I thought they were very respectful. They did not enter her home or ask her for anything. However, I learned later on in class that they were not very ethical. I must evaluate ethical considerations better in the future. Â
Lastly, I will discuss developing a research question. An issue that became apparent to me when we began creating our digital storytelling projects. Our groups were asked to first create a research question and then answer it through a digital storytelling process. I struggled while making this question because I did not want to be too specific but I also did not want to be too vague (Hay, 2016, p.101). Even now, it is difficult to conduct research questions for the same reasons. Â
3 Things I Know for Certain About Me as a Human Geographic Researcher:
Personally, I have found out many things about myself through this course. First, I have found out that I prefer and work more strongly while conducting qualitative research rather than quantitative. I have developed my understanding for the use of qualitative research methods much easier than I have ever experienced with quantitative methods. Secondly, I have determined that my passions lay within environmental geography. After learning about economic geography through my digital storytelling project, I have come to realize this is not my strong suit and environmental geography is. Lastly, I know for certain that I would be a great asset to research projects investigating how people live in smaller communities. I have learned that I am resilient and a very hard worker who communicates well when doing research. Because of this, a research project like this would be perfect for me.  Â
3 Areas I Need to Spend Time Developing/Learning in Order to Feel More Confident in My Skills:
There are some things that I acknowledge I must improve on before conducting any real qualitative research. First, I will discuss coding again. Although I am very good at organizing a method of coding, I often have trouble following it. Next, I would like to improve my listening skills in regards to interviewing. I have found that I am nervous during interviews and I tend to focus on getting the questions out which interferes with me actually hearing what my participant is saying. The textbook suggests that when everyone involved feels at ease, data collected is more insightful (Hay, 2016, p.160). So, I must work on my research nerves. Lastly, I would also like to improve my research techniques in order to ensure rigour (Hay, 2016, p.125). I ran into this issue while conducting an interview for my digital storytelling project. I had conducted the interview and then tried to quote what my participant had said, however, I did not quote word for word which made my data incorrect/irrelevant. Â
References
Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Toronto. Oxford University Press.
Hi Madison, I really enjoyed reading your final blog post.
It is awesome you were able to figure out your likes and dislikes of human geography as you mentioned you didn't enjoy economic geography. I don't necessarily like economic geography as well but I think it is essential that an individual learns about their likes and dislikes within a certain topic or how else would we ever know.
I also agree with you with the troubles of coding because it was confusing for me too. You said that you are unsure how to "classify which information is more important than others when they both regard the same word". This is something I relate too and I discussed something similar in my final blog. I had some trouble figuring out what words would help me code the best for any research project based on a single topic. I know this coding would be practical for future uses but I would need more practice to fully understand coding. I do not plan to individually do any research projects outside of school projects so I am not sure if coding is something I specifically would use outside of university.
I hope you have some good final days of the semester and a great summer as well.

























