DQ QUESTION 11-3

DQ QUESTION 11-3

Research and Social Change

Engendering positive social change is at the core of Walden’s mission. As future researchers and scholar-practitioners in your fields, you have likely had, and will continue to have, opportunities to apply your Walden learning experiences to making a difference in the lives of others.

This week, you consider the relationship between research and social change and the role of the researcher as a social change agent. You also reflect on your current research skills to determine and prepare for the next steps to take in becoming a researcher.

To prepare for this Discussion:

Review the “Social Change, “Researcher Advice,” and the “Researcher Skills” media segments.

Reflect upon your progress and growth as a researcher. Consider the questions and statements that follow.

How far have you come since the beginning of the course? What new learning about the research process has most surprised you? What impression or attribute about the research process is different than you imagined it to be prior to taking this course?

Where are opportunities for improvement to focus on as you continue taking courses in research methods and work toward your thesis or dissertation?

For Ph.D. students only: Where are you in your residency requirement? What is your next residency milestone? What do you hope to achieve at your next residency?

How do you now understand the relationship between research and social change? How do you see yourself as a social change agent?

What are your next steps in becoming a successful researcher and graduate student? What challenges do you anticipate, and how might you overcome them? With these thoughts in mind:

Post by Day 3, an explanation of the relationship between research and social change.

Then, explain the role of a researcher as an agent of positive social change.

Next, describe your plans for the next steps you need to take in becoming a successful researcher and graduate student.

Be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the reading(s) and/or media segment(s) and use APA format.

 

RSCH 8100 Transcript: “Doctoral Research: Social Change”

 

Laura Lynn: I really believe strongly that research effects social change.

 

Dale Swoboda: The academic and the practitioner need to work together and to find ways of determining what is useful knowledge.

 

Hoss Banna: The idea of research is to be able to contribute to the community and society around us.

 

John Kowlaczyk: The way I like to look at it– I am planting seeds in people’s minds.

 

Nina Nabors: And that’s one of the things that really excites me about being a researcher is that I know that my– the results of my research will have an impact.

 

Jorg Westermann: You will provide knowledge, expertise, yeah, that’s not based on your gut or your opinion. It’s based on sound scientific research.

 

Narrator: As a researcher, you have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in the community, in the workplace, or even in someone’s life. In the following video program, you’ll hear from a group of researcher-professors explaining how and why they believe research can help bring about positive social change.

 

Laura Lynn, PhD

Education and Leadership: I really believe strongly that research effects social change. In fact, that’s how I ended up in becoming a researcher and a methodologist. I was initially interested in clinical work, and I got excited about the broader ideas: theory, policy. And I realized to impact that would be to be able to produce data and findings. And so I strongly believe that being a researcher can have a big impact on social change because you can inform policy, inform practice, get information to practitioners that they can use and change the work that they do and really make a difference for families, for the community, or whatever field that you’re working in. I think the–a challenge for people after they get their PhD is making sure that they’re communicating their findings to–it’s getting, you know, to the people that need to see it, to the policy makers that need to understand it, to people that need– that want to be changing the way they do things. So it’s important to think about, how are you going to get your research out? And I encourage students as they do any projects, whether they’re in their doctoral program and their dissertation, really think about, who needs this information, and how can this inform theory, how can this make a change?

 

Amy Sickel, PhD

Social and Behavioral Sciences: Primarily, this is done through publication of our work, collaboration, working with others, and then ultimately bringing back the research work that you’ve produced to the community at hand. And I can’t stress that enough. I think that the best way for students to approach this is to look at their research from the very beginning in practical sense and in terms of, how best can they serve their local communities?

 

Hoss Banna, PhD

Public Policy and Administration: It is very important for research to include a social change component and be directed toward improving the society. This is really an area that I feel very strongly about that it should be included in all research work, whether that is a paper for a class that you are doing, whether that is a dissertation, whether that is a thesis. The idea of research is to be able to contribute to the community and society around us. For example, when you are choosing a topic, try to choose a topic that is relevant to what you do at the workplace or perhaps to the society that you live in.

 

David Gould, PhD

Management and Technology: Change creates problems, which require solutions, which generates more change. In order to break that cycle, at least to solve some problems, requires research, and research is something that we do as part of our doctoral dissertations. In that dissertation, one will generate a– identify a problem, drill that down to research questions, collect the data, and hopefully the findings will apply to the larger public body of knowledge and social change is an outcome of that.

 

Stuart Gold, PhD

Management and Technology: One of the goals of research is to impact society and to effect social change in various ways. Sometimes we’ll do research with that goal clearly in mind, and the research has a clear focus on creating some sort of social and societal changes. Often, our research may not be quite that clearly focused and directly focused on social change per se, but that may well be a secondary aspect of the research, and even though it may be secondary, that doesn’t mean that we should not value it appropriately and consider the impact of social change in our research.

 

John Kowlaczyk, PhD

Health Sciences: For one, we are contributing to the body of knowledge. It’s nice to know that we have done some research– rigorous, ethical research– that is going to be useful to somebody, some entity out there to help create a better life, a better environment, whatever the case may be and whatever field you’re in. I like the fact that I’m creating social change by my work to help people in my situation in the field of public health to get people to change unhealthy behaviors, for people to think about what they’re doing. The way I like to look at it– I am planting seeds in people’s minds. It might be a tiny little seed, but with proper nurturing and care, that seed will blossom, and that seed was a seed of knowledge, a seed of information. And the person begins to make a change. They begin to realize, “Hmm, maybe I need to think about this. “Maybe I do need to change my lifestyle. “Maybe I need to change this. “I do want to live a healthier life. I do want to live a longer life.” And I like to feel and believe that that seed– we may not see it overnight, but somewhere along the road, that seed has planted in that person’s mind, and they have made that change in their life. That’s all part of what social change is, I think. We’re creating a better world, a better situation for all of humanity.

 

Nina Nabors, PhD

Social and Behavioral Sciences: And that’s one of the things that really excites me about being a researcher is that I know that my– the results of my research will have an impact. It may be a small impact on some aspect of a population, or it may be a much broader impact, if I’m presenting my research at conferences, publishing. And so the–my research has a chance to make a change, to create a positive social change, if you will, in my community. And it’s also one of the great things about mentoring graduate students is knowing that their research will lead to positive social change in their own communities.

 

Peter Serdyukov, PhD

Education and Leadership: My professional research stemmed from my own job, from my own professional interests, from the problems that I encountered and I tried to solve. So if a doctoral student chooses a topic for dissertation in a problem from his or her own life experiences that are familiar to him and to her, if they see the problem in its entirety, how it pertains to the society they belong to, then it will be easy to provide that connection to the society and social change and prove that what you have developed applies.

 

Jorg Westermann, PhD

Health Sciences: I think once you graduate, you will be able to influence and shape society. You will be an informed citizen that can influence policy makers by providing information that’s based on scientific research and peer-reviewed information. You will provide knowledge, expertise, yeah, that’s not based on your gut or your opinion. It’s based on sound scientific research, and through that, you will be able to make a difference.

 

Dale Swoboda, PhD

PUblic Policy and Administration: The best way to influence social change is to make as many connections, both person to person and idea to idea, between theorists, researchers, and practitioners. So this means that the academic and the practitioner need to work together and to find ways of determining what is useful knowledge and the type of knowledge that can influence a better society.

 

Kimberley Cox, PhD

Social and Behavioral Sciences: I believe that research can influence positive social change if it’s applied to real-world situations. If you can answer yes to the question, as the result of your work, “Has the condition of individuals, families, and communities improved,” then you’ve been an agent of positive social change.

 

Pat Carmoney, PhD

Social and Behavioral Sciences: I think that the possibility of social change is almost too much to think about for–in some ways, but if you think about it as lighting one little candle, it helps. It brings it down in scope, and it’s maybe more manageable if you just think about it as this one thing, but it is important. It’s like carrying a fire from one place to the next without letting it go out. And it has to be there with you the entire time in order to make social change happen.

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