Building a Productive Research Career

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Building a Productive Research Career

• Robert Wood
• Keynote Address
• Student Division-IAAP
• 26th International Congress of Applied Psychology
• Athens, July 2006

2

• People who regard themselves as highly
  efficacious act, think, and feel differently from
  those who perceive themselves as inefficacious.
  They produce their own future, rather than simply
  foretell it.
• "We should be realistic about the odds, but
  optimistic that we can beat those odds."
• Albert Bandura

3

• The Research Context
• Personal Strategies
• Journal Requirements and Processes

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The Research and Dissemination Process

• Knowledge for understanding
• Long feedback cycles
• Curiosity motive
• Relatively low financial rewards/ potential high
  recognition

• Knowledge for use
• Variable feedback cycles
• Curiosity and problem solving motives
• Rewards depend on applications

• Knowledge as a commodity
• Variable feedback cycles
• Learning/Development motive
• Potential for high financial rewards and
  recognition

• Knowledge as a tool
• Short feedback cycles
• Motivated by what works
• High financial rewards/low recognition

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The Psychological Research System
BASIC RESEARCH
COGNITIVE
LEARNING
SOCIAL
NEURO
APPLIED RESEARCH
EDUCATION
ORGANIATIONAL
HEALTH
LEADERSHIP TEAMS
SELF REGULATION
PRODUCTVITY
MENTAL HEALTH
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Redrawing the Relationships
Basic Research that increases understanding
YES
NO

• RESEARCH TRAINING
• REPLICATION STUDIES

PURE SCIENCE QUADRANT
Applied Research that improves practice, methods,
or technology
NO
TECHNOLOGY QUADRANT
PASTEURS QUADRANT
YES
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II Personal Strategies

• Personal Paradigm
• Analytical Methods
• Self-management

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Nobel Prize winner Dr. Herbert A. Simon in his
office at Carnegie Mellon University in March
1986 (Post Gazette)
Professor K. Anders Ericsson during his visit to
the Accelerated Learning Lab, AGSM, May 2006
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Knowledge Structure of a Novice

• Typical Properties Responses to Problems
• Small Chunks of knowledge
• Disorganized with weak links
• Decision rules and actions disconnected from
  facts and broader, longer term considerations

Decision Rules Actions
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Expert Knowledge Structure

• Typical Properties Responses to Problems
• Large Chunks of knowledge, well organized,
  strong links
• Pattern recognition rapidly produces small sets
  of high quality options
• Decision rules and actions linked to facts and
  bigger picture
• Good anticipation of system effects and
  unexpected outcomes

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Deliberate Practice that leads to expert
performance requires

• Stretching of existing cognitive capability
• Planned experience trajectory of increasingly
  more complex and difficult tasks
• Full concentration and effort
• Adequate sleep and rest
• Active hypothesis testing
• Reflection on decisions and strategies
• Development of knowledge linked to execution
  skills
• A motivational profile that includes curiosity,
  tolerance for failure and persistence

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Personal Paradigm

• The theory or construct that provides your lens
  on the world, the source of explanations, the
  framing of problems, etc. This is your source of
  expertise.
• An alternative approach is to focus on a problem
• Your theory can range from general (e.g. social
  cognitive theory) to specific (e.g. intrinsic
  motivation). Problems can also vary in
  specificity
• Development of expertise requires cumulation of
  knowledge, repetition and incremental
  development of your mental models
• Once chosen - you need to read everything
  written on the topic. The later you start, the
  more specific your focus will need to be.

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Analytical Methods

• The second area of expertise.
• Quantitative vs. Qualitative?
• stages of knowledge
• audience
• skills required
• Expert vs. generalist?
• Collaboration strategies

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Self-management

• Identity as a scientist
• Teams and social networks
• Work discipline

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Research milestones team meetings

• Conceptualization
• Proposal
• Ethics approval
• Development and testing of materials
• Pilot study
• Data collection
• Analyses
• First draft
• Journal submission

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III Journal Requirements Processes

• Fatal Flaws
• Positioning the Research
• Validity Issues
• The Paper

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Fatal Flaws

• Data cannot answer the questions being addressed.
• No amount of statistical torture will lead to a
  believable confession
• Flawed methods (confounds, etc.)
• Flawless design, sophisticated statistical
  analyses, good sample to study an uninteresting
  or over-researched question.
• No contribution problem
• Do not know where the frontier lies
• May be retrievable as a replication note or a
  part of a book chapter.

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Positioning the Research

• Which quadrant does your research fit in?
• Which quadrant does the journal publish in? Does
  it make exceptions for novel, frontier research
  questions?
• What are the contributions to knowledge? You
  should state this early and return to it at the
  end.
• Beyond the journal who do you want to read your
  work? Dont confuse journal reviewers with
  disseminators and practitioners.

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Key Validity Issues

• Sample size
• Power and significance are both important
• Measures
• Use validated measures
• New measures have to be validated
• APES (Alternative Plausible Explanation Occams
  Razor)
• Treatments of variables
• Confounds

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The Paper

• Understanding the purpose of each section
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Conclusion
• Preparation and presentation are different
  processes
• Targeting the introduction

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Concluding thoughts

• Who am I? Do you want to be a scientist or
  practitioner?
• Long periods of deliberative development lead to
  success. There are no shortcuts and brilliance is
  rarely enough.
• Enjoy what you do but do not fall victim to the
  view that because something is hard, it is not
  fun. Task difficulty is a transient state.
• Questions?