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RESEARCHING IN THE WORKPLACE
Claire Sewell
@ces43
Who am I and
why am I here
talking to you
today?
My job title is
Research Skills
Coordinator in the
Office of Scholarly
Communication at
Cambridge
University Library
– short and
snazzy!
Most people think
this means my job
is teaching
research skills to
students but they
would be wrong –
I teach librarians
about things in the
area of scholarly
communication
and the research
Research Skills Coordinator, Office of
Scholarly Communication, Cambridge
University Library
Teaching research skills to students
Teaching and training library staff in
Cambridge
CURRENT RESEARCH
• Looking into the educational background of people
working in scholarly communication
• Designed and distributed survey
• Follow up interviews
• Plan to write up the results as a journal article,
conference presentation, blog post ... and more to
come!
http://bit.ly/AcademicLibrarianTraining
Part of my role involves actually doing
research
• Lucky that my line manager
understands the importance of doing
research and gives me a lot of support
• Current research project that we are
working on looks at the educational
background of those working in
scholarly communication – where do
they find out the information they
need to do their jobs
• We’ve recently send out a survey and
the response was really positive
• Have decided to do some follow up
interviews
• Will be writing up the results and
sharing them in various forms – an
article, conference presentations and
on the Office blog – so watch this
space
• Link to the blog post there if you’re
interested in finding out a bit more
about the research
So why should you make time to do research
in the workplace?
• Solving a problem – doing research can
help you to solve a problem. You can come
up with different solutions and test out
theories and get some solid answers about
what the plan should be.
• Proving your case to stakeholders –
gives some added weight to your
arguments. You might know that something
isn’t working but you will need to prove this
to those involved in running your library
service. Having concrete evidence from
research can be hard to argue with and
really helps to strengthen your case. If you
work in an academic library doing your own
research can also be useful when it comes
to talking to researchers. You will better
understand the process they are going
through, the terminology and this often
results them having more respect for you.
• Career advancement – having some
research and associated publications or
presentations on your CV can really make it
stand out. Not the main reason to do
research but a definite added benefit
• Help other learn from what you have
done - you can share the knowledge you
gain with your peers and this can help them
solve similar problems. There are only so
many problems to go round and it can be
comforting to know that someone else is
going through/has gone through the same
thing as you. It can also provide the
foundation for others to build on your
research and advance knowledge further.
Research can have benefits in your own
institution and beyond depending on how or
if you share it (more on this later)
WHY DO RESEARCH?
Solving a problem
Proving your case to
stakeholders
Career advancement
Help others learn from
what you have done
EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICE
Problem
Gather evidence
Critical appraisal
Apply to problem
Evaluate
This spirit of sharing knowledge and
building on it fits into the model of
evidence base practice or evidence
based librarianship
• Term that originated in medicine
as a way to apply research
findings to critical decision making
• Starts with an area where there is
some sort of problem or librarians
are looking to improve their
practice existing research is
gathered to address this problem
or support a possible solution
the evidence is critically appraised
to check whether it is valid and
reliable the valid research is
then applied to the problem
final step is to evaluate the
process and determine if there
has been any impact and if there
is room for improvement this
may lead to new problems being
discovered and so the process
goes on
• Librarians are very good at the
gathering and critical appraisal
parts of this cycle but need to do
more to create evidence – fill the
gap by acting as practitioner
researchers
• Obviously for this process to take
place there has to be existing
research to gather and build upon
and that’s where workplace
research comes in
• Can help you make informed
decisions based on solid results
rather than just relying on a gut
feeling
• Can also help to improve the
culture of the organisation as it
moves towards making decisions
based on evidence
Need to acknowledge that there are several barriers to people carrying out research in the workplace:
• Finding time – probably a lot of people’s biggest worry. Most people, especially those new to the
profession, like to get involved in a lot of different things and it’s hard to fit another one in. If research is
really important to you then you can make time when possible to conduct research. You will need to
learn to juggle competing priorities and make time where you can.
• Lack of resources – time is a resource but so is money and that’s what people often think about .
Having a good research plan in place can help with this and you plan how to use the resources you DO
have access to. You might also have to reign in your plans a bit to fit the resources you have.
• Lack of support – crucially if you’re going to research in the workplace you’re going to need support
from your manager. It might take work to keep them interested and you might find that they lose interest
over time as their priorities change. This often happens faster than it takes to carry out the research in
the first place! You will need to keep them motivated and reiterate how important the research is to you
and to other stakeholders in order to keep their interest.
• Political barriers – it might be that the culture of the organisation doesn’t really value research. You
might also find that your research uncovers something which makes people feel uncomfortable – this is
something you will have to deal with. Asking questions of people you work with might make them feel
uncomfortable, that can be a barrier.
• Personal barriers – probably the biggest barrier for most people doing workplace research.
• “imposter syndrome” – that little voice in the back of your head that says ‘why am I doing
this?’, ‘there is someone more qualified for this than me!’. People also lose confidence in their
skills over time – become almost de-skilled – especially after doing a dissertation and this
results in a barrier to carrying out more research.
• Wanting everything to be perfect – suspect this is a problem a lot of librarians have! No
research will ever be perfect but a lot of people will spend so much time trying to plan it so it is
they forget to actually get started on the research!
• Separating yourself from the day job – if you’re doing research in your workplace, with
people you know, it can be difficult to remain objective. You need to take a step back and be
critical and evaluative but that’s hard when you know the people involved, sometimes really
well. Researching at work can also create some bias as you might think you already know the
answer to the questions you’re asking so you need to work to avoid this.
• Motivation – this will be familiar to anyone who’s done a library qualification. It can be hard to
focus on something related to your day job as there is no escape from the library which can be
tough on motivation. This is especially true if you’ve had a bad day – it can be hard to keep
going!
Many of these barriers can be overcome with work and some negotiation. You need to remember why you
got into the research in the first place and remember the value of what you’re doing.
BARRIERS TO DOING RESEARCH
Finding time
Lack of resources
Lack of support
Political barriers
Personal barriers
RESEARCH OUTCOMES
• Intended outcome can help you form your research
question(s)
• Do you want to change a process? Inform people
about something? Prove a hypothesis?
CAUTION: Don’t let the outcome you want influence
your research
It’s important to consider the outcome
that you want from your research
• Are you looking to change a process
and want some evidence to support
this?
• Do you want to inform people about
something?
• Do you have a hypothesis that you
want to prove?
What you want the outcome of your
research to be can help you form the
actual research questions that you use
so it’s important to consider this. Having
an outcome in mind also helps you to
plan your research
If you want your line manager to give you
time off or other resources then you need
to be able to demonstrate that you’ve
thought about the intended outcome of
your research
• What will they get out of investing in
you to do this?
A word of caution – don’t let the outcome
you want influence your research. Just
remember to be critical and make sure
that you’re not introducing an
unconscious bias into your research by
being too focused on what you want to
happen at the end of it
So what skills do you need to develop to become a good workplace researcher?
• Time management – making time to do research will always be a challenge so you will need
good time management skills. There will be deadlines and things that need to be prioritised at the
same time as doing other work so you will need to juggle your time. Time management is a useful
transferable skill to have
• Ability to take criticism – you may find that you have to ask and answer difficult questions.
Handling criticism and feedback well is a skill and you have to put aside personal feelings. If you
give people the opportunity to comment you may not like the feedback you get, especially if it’s
anonymous. This is not personal criticism of you but it can feel like it, especially when you’ve put a
lot into the research design. You may also find that people are critical of your workplace which
again can be difficult if you are involved in the process they are criticising. You need a thick skin to
be a researcher sometimes
• Communication skills
• You will need these during both during the research process and afterwards. When
you’re actually doing research you may need to approach people to be part of your
project like interviewees, you may develop a written survey, you may have to talk to
your line manager about letting you do the research in the first place. All of these
require a level of verbal communication skill which you can work on developing
• You will also need written communication skills. There is likely to be some form of
written output for your research: a report, a briefing, a blog post or something more
formal like a journal article. Again, these all require different types of written skills which
you can develop as a result of doing research
• Negotiation – linked to the need for verbal communication skills is the need to be able to
negotiate. Negotiation is something a lot of people feel uncomfortable with but it is a skill that can
be learnt. You might need to negotiate with your line manager about doing the research, with
stakeholders about reasonable outcomes or with collaborators about deadlines and workloads.
• Neutrality – I debated whether this was a skill or not but I think it’s an important area to talk about
and one which we’ll talk about in more detail later. Carrying out research in the workplace means
that you will be very involved in your research environment and it can be hard to remain neutral
when dealing with people you know. It’s important that you do remain neutral as otherwise you
can impact the outcome of your research. It’s easier said than done and there may always be an
unconscious bias but you have to work hard to push this to one side.
This is only a selection of the skills needed and only from my point of view. Does anyone else have a
different idea of the skills needed?
SKILLS
Time management
Ability to take criticism
Communication skills
Negotiation
Neutrality
PROS
• Insider knowledge of an
organisation
• Higher level of access to an
organisation
• Established level of trust
• Can make a contribution to
organisational change
• Impact on objectivity
• Colleagues may not see
you as a researcher
• Risk of finding out negative
information
• Responsibility for change
CONS
PROS AND CONS
So in summary here are
some pros and cons of doing
research in the workplace
• Pros
• Insider
knowledge of
an
organisation –
you will already
know how the
organisation
works which will
give you a
deeper level of
understanding
for the context
of your
research. If you
were coming in
cold to another
research
environment
then you would
have to learn all
this as you go
along which
can make
things more
difficult
• Higher level of
access to an
organisation –
being in the
workplace
already is likely
to open doors
for you when it
comes to
getting access
to information.
You will most
likely know
where to go
and who to talk
to to find out
what you need
to know
• Established
level of trust –
linked to this is
the level of trust
you will already
have within
your
CREATE YOUR RESEARCH PLAN IN 7 STEPS
One thing that’s very
important with doing any
kind of research is
having a plan but it can
be hard to know where
to start.
For the rest of the
session we’re going to
talk through creating a
research plan in seven
steps. By the end of this
exercise you should
have an action plan to
tale away and refer back
to.
Step one: you need to know
what you’re investigating
• Think of a problem – look for
the gaps between what is
happening and the ideal
situation. This is a good
place to conduct research.
• Use the questions on the
screen as a prompt or
maybe you already have
something in mind
STEP 1:THINK OF A PROBLEM
Have you noticed
something at work?
Could you improve on a
process?
Think you have a better
way to do something?
Step two: you need to know where you’re
going in order to plan how to get there
• Think about what you want to happen as
a result of your research
• What are you aiming for ultimately
STEP 2:OUTCOMES
Do you want something to
change?
Are you proving a
hypothesis?
Are you making the case for
more resources?
Step three: possibly the hardest step –
thinking of a research question! It’s
important to take the time to think through
and develop your research question –
how can you say you’ve found the answer
if you don’t know what the question is?
• Need to frame your problem into a
question you can answer
• Be practical – consider any constraints
you might have. You won’t be able to
solve massive problems be sensible in
what you ask
• Remember that one piece of research
can actually be made up of many
smaller research questions so if it is a
massive problem you want to solve then
you might need more than one question
STEP 3:TURN IT INTO A
RESEARCH QUESTION(S)
How can you frame your
problem into a question
you can answer?
Be practical!
One piece of research =
many questions
RESEARCH QUESTION CHECKLIST
What do I want to achieve with this research?
Will it hold my interest for the length of the project?
Will the findings be useful to my organisation or the
wider library community?
Have I made any assumptions that need to be
checked?
Is it doable?
from Workplace Research / Zina O’Leary & Jennifer S. Hunt
Research question checklist, some
prompts to help you create a research
question:
• What do I want to achieve with
this research? – thinking back to
the research outcomes we talked
about before. What do you want the
outcome of this research to be? Are
you looking to change a process or
prove a hypothesis? The aim will
always influence your research
question
• Will it hold my interest for the
length of the project? – try and find
a question which you can get
invested in. Chances are you will be
spending a lot of time and energy on
this project so you want something
that will hold your attention
• Will the findings be useful to my
organisation or the wider library
community? – think about
something that’s likely to be of
interest to a wide group of people,
whether this is in your own
organisation or the wider library
community. Of course, this
somewhat depends on what you
want the outcome of the research to
be and how far you plan on sharing
it
• Have I made any assumptions
that need to be checked? – we
talked about the problems of
remaining neutral when conducting
research in an environment that you
know well so double check that your
question isn’t making any
assumptions before you even start
your research
• Is it doable? – can you realistically
answer the question given the time,
support and resources that you are
likely to have? Grand ambitions are
fine but try to keep your research
question focused so that you can
actually answer it
TWO MINUTES TO DEVISE A
QUESTION OR QUESTIONS
Step four: now you need to think about the
methods you will use to answer your question
• The research question may lend itself to
certain methods or it may not. Important
thing is to choose the right method for your
research – don’t just do a survey because
you know how to do one, do it because it’s
the most appropriate method
• Think about what you can manage – what
resources do you have access to? It might
be great to do interviews but can you really
in time available?
• Is the method you want to use practical –
think about issues that might make things
difficult such as needing access to personal
data. When I was doing dissertation
research I wanted to email all members of
the UL but I didn’t have access to the data
STEP 4:THINK ABOUT METHODS
Choose the right method
for your research
Think about what is
manageable
Consider any issues that
might make things difficult
Step five: think about any ethical issues
associated with your research
• This is especially true if you’re dealing with
people and sensitive data
• You will need to have procedures in place to
protect your research participants and any
data you collect
• Check if your workplace has any ethical review
procedures in place – there may be
somewhere you can turn to for advice. You
may have to apply formally to conduct some
types of research so bear this in mind
• Even if you’re not dealing with sensitive data
it’s important to plan how you will inform
participants about what’s happening and how
you will store information you collect
STEP 5: CONSIDER THE ETHICS
Dealing with people often
means dealing with
sensitive data
How will you keep
participants and data
safe?
Is there an ethical review
process at your
workplace?
Step six: consider the timescale of your
research
• Again, I keep saying this but it’s an
important point to stress – be realistic in
what you can achieve. You will have many
competing priorities and it’s just not
possible to fit an extra hour in the day
• So you have a system for managing this –
can be formal like a Gantt chart or informal
as long as it works for you
• Be realistic – don’t try to do too much in too
little time because it will never work
• Plan for the unexpected – always build in
extra time for things that go wrong or the
unexpected things that will crop up as
you’re doing the research
• Are there any external factors that you
have to think about? – does your line
manager need the research done by a
certain time? Do you need to complete the
project by a certain point?
STEP 6:PLAN TIMESCALES
Be realistic
Plan for the unexpected
Do any external factors
influence your timescales?
Once you have completed your research project you need to think
about how you will share it. This is an important part of the
evidence based research cycle we looked at earlier. Some things to
bear in mind
• A lot of what I’m about to talk about relates to sharing your
research with a wider audience but this might not be appropriate.
You may only share the research internally for example in the
form of a report and that’s perfectly fine. Sometimes there are
valid reasons why it might not be appropriate to share with the
wider audience
• Even if you can’t share with the wider world can you share the
(anonymised) data produced by your research? This will allow
others to use and build upon your data without giving away the
outcomes of your research
• Formal
• If you are able to share your research more widely then
an obvious way to do this is through a formal mechanism
such as journal articles or conference presentations.
Watch for calls for papers online – Twitter is a particularly
good source for this – or keep an eye on the mailing lists
for anything that might be appropriate
• Informal
• Share the results more informally with colleagues. Is there
an in-house mechanism for this? If there isn’t then can
you start on?
One major caveat with this is that you need to be realistic about
what you can achieve with the time and resources you have
available. It might be great to say that you will produce a 50 page
report but is this realistic?
STEP 7: HOW WILL YOUR SHARE
YOUR RESULTS?
How will you communicate
with key stakeholders?
Is it appropriate to share
the results with a wider
audience?
Formal or informal?
Professional development
Peer review is an important part of formally
sharing your research findings. We are going to
practice an informal peer review
• Swap your plan with someone else
• Review the new plan and offer some
suggestions or criticism:
• Is there anything that you think has been
missed?
• Is the question to narrow or too broad?
• Can you recommend a different method to
use?
• Can you think of any other ways to share
the research that might be appropriate?
• Have three minutes to comment on the plan
and then swap back
PEER REVIEW
Swap your plan with a
neighbour
Is there anything missing
from the plan?
What would you do
differently?
Congratulations – you now all have a peer reviewed research plan! You may not get
to implement this straight away but you are one (or seven) steps closer to actually
doing the research!
Even if you can’t carry out the research now then take the plan away, work on it and
use it to develop research ideas in the future.
CONGRATULATIONS!
QUESTIONS?
TOP TIPS
Combine efforts with a colleague at your institution or
elsewhere
Don’t be afraid to talk about what hasn’t worked. Not
everything has to be a success to be valuable
Think about scale – what is achievable?
Be open about what you are doing
Have fun!
Just want to leave you with a few top
tips about carrying out workplace
research:
• If the idea of doing workplace
research is still daunting then why
not combine efforts with a
colleague?
• Don’t be afraid to talk about what
hasn’t worked in the research
process – this can be just as
valuable as sharing the results of
something that went well. It can
save a lot of wasted time and
effort with people repeating
something that isn’t going to work
• Think about scale – with the
constraints that you face what is
achievable?
• Be open – share the process as
you go along. Not only is this good
practice but it can help encourage
others into the research process
• Above all – have fun! Workplace
research is a great chance to
explore some new areas and learn
new things
Thanks for
listening!
