I need other people's opinion about my idea. Maybe a validation perhaps? please feel free to comment on the things I wrote (if there are any). Thank you!
I absolutely agree. It seems like there is often a disconnection between the researchers and the end users. Researchers can often be very educated in their field but they are less likely to have extensive face to face experience working with the population. I think this leads to a deficit in evidenced based interventions that can (realistically) be put into practice.
Researchers need resources and incentive in order to do research which leads to a huge problem with bias. They are simply more likely to do research and publish results that will yield benefits. Researchers
wouldn’t have the resources to continue research if they didn’t have that bias. If we change our culture and begin to value research for the sake of exploration it might lead to some exciting discoveries.
It would be exciting to get some of that research from the people who are in the field putting it into practice every day. Of course that can also lead to bias if we are not careful. Practitioners will probably have methods that they enjoy or methods that are easier to use. It would be difficult for practicioners to accept results that say they shouldn’t use their favorite methods or that they need to adopt methods that involve more work and less reward. Ultimately practitioners are also limited by their ability to fund their work. Which means that regardless of what we know, the insurance companies have more power over what we do.
We we would also need to guard against “exploration“ being used as a mask for “exploitation“. The United States has a long sordid history of using research to further stigmatize and exploit marginalized cultures. Even researchers with the best of intentions may inadvertently exploit marginalized people. There are other implications that researchers need to consider as well. Researching vulnerable communities can lead to unintended harm.
For example imagine conducting research within the transgender community. There is a lot of unmet need in that community yet the political environment is unsafe. It’s important to keep in mind how the research could be used. Especially if people with harmful intentions have access to the information. Maybe you want to find out how to identify transgender children early in order to provide better care. You develop a screening tool that can be used along with the autism screening tool for the purpose of early intervention. Unfortunately, even though your intentions were good, others want to kill or otherwise harm transgender people. What might happen if they have the ability to identify these people as vulnerable children? Many trans people are not even safe within their own families.
To sum up I love the idea of more research and I believe it must be done responsibly and ethically with regard to unintended consequence.
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- Science method
- Similar topics
- Methodology
- Research Methodology
- Qualitative Research