Research and Investigation Skills for Students: How to Develop

I believe that I have brilliant research and investigating skills. I first became aware of my skill when I was in my first year of college. I was participating in a fun light- hearted investigating activity in my business administration class. This consisted of us reading various sources of information regarding different scenarios where money, objects or people had gone missing. We then had to work out how certain money, objects or people could had gone missing based on the scenario we had read. We then had to start piecing different occurrences together. After this we analysed the information and then came to a conclusion presenting our findings. Even though this was a only a fun light – hearted task my teacher gave me feedback not only saying that we was the winning team, but that I certainly had showed a good level of maturity and a high researching and investigating skills within the task. She gave me feedback saying how I carefully made sure I researched and got all the curtail detail to back my point up before jumping to conclusions.

Another case in which I was able to show good research and investigating skills was in my assignment in the second year of college. This consisted of me having to act out within a role play both face to face and an on the telephone to another member of the class. I did not know what the outcome was going to be from the difficult customer (Class member). I had to think on my feet, investigate the problem, solve the problem and come to a fair compromise. I carried the tasks out confidently and I passed the assessment with the feedback stating that I used outstanding investigating, problem solving and research skills of a towering high standard. It was also pointed out that I had great listening skills which helped me greatly within the role-play.

I then moved onto a different area of study; Business Management. One of the assignments was asking me to look into monitoring employee’s performance. This included me investigating into the different motivation strategies, whether it would fit in with the type of employee and solve the problem of why the employee was not performing as well as previously. Clearly within this task I showed immense researching and investigating skills as I achieved two distinctions in this task. I also had feedback off my personal tutor saying how professional my work was and, again, how high standard my skills were used within the task.

In my second week of university for my marketing principles unit we had to get into groups of four in order to produce and present a group presentation. One of the girls had certain issues at home that meant she could not come in for all the lectures. I took it upon myself to research into what the issue was and worked out a solution that would mean that she would not be excluded from our group but we would still be able to have her input on the presentation. After investigating what the issue was we came up with a solution of her doing the work at home but getting her allocated task to us when all the other group members were holding meetings. This then allow us to access the work she had done and make sure it fit in with the standard of our existing slides. Even though this was not computer based researching or investigating it is still a clear example of how I researched, investigated and came up with a solution using my skills.

Lastly I also showed relevant skills outside of education and in the world of work. I used my Research and investigative skills within my part time job in Mercedes-Benz. My job is a meeter and greeter and receptionist. Every weekend I get calls from people with problems that I’m not sure how to deal with. I always investigate what the customer is telling me, get all the details and then I look how I can resolve the problem as quick but as professional as possible. I know I am good at this as my manager gave me praise for my customer service on the telephone and said how well I do regarding issues that are out of my control. He stated that I always remain calm in order to collect the information and then analyse the situation and come up with a quick but well thought solution using my initiative. Again this shows that I can show a good level of research and investigation skills in a real work environment.

From carefully and precisely filling out the Higher education QAA Core Skills audit material, rating myself from one to five in terms of effectiveness of skills and analysing the findings, I came to conclude many factors. Through studying the self- audit material It was brought to my awareness of three main skills in which I had rated as five, meaning highly skilled. One of those skills was research and investigative. This instantly sparked my curiosity and spurred me on to wanting to research deeper into self audit materials to see what the outcome would be regarding my research this skill. I found this self audit material extremely beneficial as it allowed me to visually see my strengths against my weaker areas and helped me to really study the patterns occurring in each strength that was appearing. I defiantly feel that the description section next to the name of the skill helped me to analyse how many different other aspects are included when looking deeper into your and being able to use them to resolve problems situations at work. It made me reflect on a deeper level of how strong my research and investigative skills are and how I use the skill in day to day situations.

I also carried out a self audit material called Learning style questionnaire. This consisted of 80 statements. I had to tick the ones in which I felt best described myself as a learner. I calculated the ticks up in a grid and came to the realisation that my Learning style is a Reflector. It stated; They collect data, both first hand and from others and prefer to chew it over thoroughly before coming to a conclusion. This backs up why I find my research and investigative skills so strong. This would be because as my learning style is a reflector, this means I like to think about information before collecting it. I also research into different theories and issues along with different advantages and disadvantages of a certain situations. The learning style questionnaire also stated the strengths that are often included with a reflector are; being careful, thorough and methodical and rarely jump to conclusions. As the type of learner I am involves me being very precautious and getting everything precise with firmly backed up facts. This shows why I am able to effectively show my research and investigative as a strength. In almost any situation I can put my effective research and investigative skills to the test. This is because the aspects that come with my Reflector learning style are also needed to effectively show good information and investigative skills. For example; you need to be careful and thorough with information you have found before coming to conclusions. This is because if you read some information or research wrong your conclusions will be wrong and depending on what kind of situation you are researching and investigating could cause major consequences such as; If I was at work and I was dealing with a complaint and I had started researching into the issue and investigating the problem from looking at a email or letter but I had miss read a particular aspect then this could have consequences for me as a employer for example as I could give them a refund when there not entitled to one etc.

Also, after analysing the result from the learning styles questionnaire it excited me and urged me to carry out more audit materials that would help me to dig deeper to why I find my researching and investigative such a high skill of mine. I got access to some audit material called; Team roles personal inventory: Belbin. After giving out a total of ten points to each aspect of the different statements in which I would associate with me. I totalled the points up there was a clear outcome.

It stated that within a team within a team role I am a Completer Finisher. A Completer Finisher involves having good eye for detail and well analysing information in order to pick out all kinds of errors. After studying this self audit material I came to realise that I do not just carry out this role within a team but I also carry this out within independent work too. It came to my realisation that being a complete finisher is a first-class quality skill to have. I believe that this Self- Audit material was tremendously informative in helping me to think outside of the box and coming to realisation that because I have the attributes of a compete finisher; Searching out errors and omissions and delivering on time they helps me to perform well within my researching and investigative skills. Searching out errors is curtail when researching and investigating in order to make sure the information you have found is true or is relevant to the problem you are trying to sort out. If I had bad eye for detail and was not good at searching out errors then I believe I would be less effective within my research and investigative skills.

I also carried out a third Self-audit material called; Self Assessed Audit For This consisted of having to rate from one to five in each column for each skill, one being a low skill and five being a high skill. There was a range of different skills and this enabled me to get a more detailed and rounded outlook into my skills and weaknesses. Through carrying this Self- Audit material it became obvious at how strong my Research and Investigative skills were due to being informed when I saw I had only rated myself rated myself fives throughout the section called An independent learner and researcher. This section involved; Work without supervision and use own initiative, maintaining effectiveness in changing environments, able to devise own approaches to projects and able to set own questions and work alongside colleagues in different environments. Through rating myself all fives within this area shows that I have a high rated quality skill within in this area and this audit material really helped me to go deep and find all the little aspects involved which helps me to perform so well within my research and investigative skill.

The last Self audit material that I used in order to gather knowledge about my research and investigative skills is the; Traffic light skills audit. I had to rate how effective I felt I was at each skill; Red was; I really need to work on this, amber was; not entirely sure – I could still improve and green was; I am really confident I can do this. This enlightened me to clearly see how researching and investigating is a high rising strength of mine. It became apparent when I evaluated the outcome of this audit material. The outcome was that in the section of critical thinking and problem solving I managed to rate myself all green which meant I felt confident within the area. It included statements such as:

• I am able to use different methods for exploring a problem such as considering different points of view
• I am able to consider a range of alternative solutions to a problem and predict the best one in the given circumstances
• I am able to work productively with others to solve problems. Etc.

As I had rated myself as feeling really confident with all these areas it made me realise that my research and investigative skill is if not the top strength that I hold and I am confident with every aspect that is involved with this skills.

I believe that having a highly developed skill in research and investigative area is really important within perusing my career in Human Resources Management. Human Resource Management has many ranges of areas involved with the job. Some of these areas include; recruiting, dismissing and sorting out workplace conflicts. Researching and investigative skills are need for each of the listed above for the job to be successfully accomplished. You wouldn’t be able to recruit the best candidate without investigating and researching into what type of personality they have, if they would fit in well with the existing team and if they had the right skills and mindset to carry out the required duties. You would also not be able successfully and ethically dismiss an employee without researching and investigating into the situation of what happened, was it ethical or unethical? , do the legislations state they should act in that way? Likewise you would certainly need this skill for sorting out workplace conflict. You would defiantly need to research into the law legislations to get an insight into if it was immoral behaviour along with investigating the issue, what caused the issue? And who was in the wrong. Therefore, I believe that Maintaining this skill and even developing it further is very important for my career goal within Human Resource Management.

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