Pre-Assessment Essay 1

PRE-ASSESSMENT ESSAY

Pre-Assessment Essay
 Pre-Assessment Essay 2

IDENTIFY AND SELF-ASSESS YOUR CURRENT RESEARCH MINDSET AND SKILLS

My current research mindset and skills are as Stuart Gold put in, rather ‘a mile wide and

an inch deep’. I need to bring my perspective and focus on the research topic of Knowledge

Management so that is ‘a mile deep and an inch wide’. Given below are some pointers on my

research mindset and skills and ethical issues.

Since I have been working with the Federal Government, I have a lot of practical

knowledge and experience of field practices. However, what I need to develop is a good base of

academic research methods, practices, method of writing, referencing and so on. This has

become all the more important when I have to consider that my thesis would be focusing on

knowledge management and capturing the knowledge of hundreds of senior Federal staff. The

mindset is therefore very positive and I am clear about what has to be done and I am also clear

about the subject of my research. Coming to the skills and ethics that I have and the skills that

are required for carrying out the research, it is clear that there is some amount of gap between my

current skills and what is required. I have very good and promising plans for the research, but

these ideas can come to fruition only if they follow the set path of academic data gathering and

research and knowing how to write properly.

I have to carefully follow ethics and maintain the required ethical behavior while

conducting the research. The ethical behavior can be compromised in a number of factors such as

bias, plagiarism, reuse of data, institutional review board, reviewing and reporting results.

Bias can occur from actions of the researcher as well as the respondents. It is true that

many of my colleagues would be ready to help me complete the research and I also would have

sufficient organizational support. However, this should not lead to a situation where ethics are

compromised. I should not wittingly or unwittingly attempt to goad and direct the research
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subjects to give responses that I want. In effect, the research should be clear, unbiased and be

natural. It is also important that all instances of plagiarism be avoided and this extends to beyond

citing sources used in the paper. Efforts should be taken to carefully avoid any previously

published research and the research should be original in content, thoughts and spirit. Plagiarism

can be avoided by paraphrasing, carefully rewriting the content but this is not observing the

spirit.

Reuse of data comes about when already published data is used without acknowledging

the source or informing the author about this act. Even when a case study approach of research is

used, this aspect has to be followed and while reanalysis of old data from a different perspective

may be allowed, this information must be informed to the board and prior approval taken. The

last factors are institutional review board, reviewing and reporting results. Institutional review

board refers to informing the board about any ethical dilemmas that can occur such as using

subjects who are underage. Reviewing and reporting results can create ethical issues when the

researcher finds that the results are not following the model and path that was proposed in the

proposal. To ensure that controversies are not created, the researcher can suppress some readings

and observations and fabricate other results so that the results that are reported would follow the

desired model and pattern. This is ethically wrong and I would not indulge in such behavior.

To conclude, I have resented my research mindset, performed a gap analysis of the

required skills and my current skills. I have also examined various ethical dilemmas and issues

that can occur during the research.

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REFERENCES

Kacmar, M, K., (2009). "An Ethical Quiz". Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 52, No. 3,

432–434

Schminke, M., (2009)."Better Angels of Our Nature – Ethics and Integrity in the Publishing

Process". University of Central Florida. Academy of Management Review, Vol. 34, No.

4, 586–591