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Student interview before class
Student interview before class
Welcome to the course. I’m Liu Tingting, the chief lecturer of the subject Research Method. Before the start of the class, I’d like to hear some voices from the students. I hope to know that from the perspective of the students, what do they think about the research method? And what are their struggles as well as the expectations towards the class? Hi, David, it’s very great to know that you’ll be one of the students in our subject Research Method. Welcome. Thank you very much, Dr.Liu. I’m very excited to be here, and I’m really looking forward to the online course. Thanks for having you. Could you briefly introduce yourself to our audience, first? My name is David Sipos. I come from Hungary.
I’m 27 years old, and I’m an international student here at Nankai University, majoring in tourism management. How long have you been here? This is my 5th year here in China. I’ve started my master degree last year. And before that I’ve studied two years of language course here at Nankai University and also one year at Hainan University in Haikou.
Do you have any questions towards the subject of Research Method? Yes. Although I’m a master degree student, I haven’t studied the research method during my bachelor studies. So I am quite new to this subject. I think I’m not even sure about the most basic questions. For example, what is the main difference between qualitative and quantitative research? And how do we decide which one to use? It’s actually a very good question, David, but no worries. Actually, this course is a preliminary course for the research method, it targets at students who are still entry level towards the academic world.
So this course is for students who want to get the idea of what academy research is in tourism field and to know how they can have the general sense of conducting research. As for your question of the differences between qualitative research and quantitative research, I think at the second sessions of this subject, we have the opportunity to have Dr.Daisy Fan from University of Bournemouth to discuss this topic in details. Okay, great to know that. Actually I’ve already started writing my thesis, and I think I really need to get more familiar with this course before the completion of my paper. Great. It’s really a good time for you to register this class. Which part are you doing for your thesis, now?
Right now I’m doing the literature review part. Actually I realized that it is harder than I thought. I know that literature is a very crucial part of the thesis. So, what are the most important things we should pay attention to while writing the literature review? I see. Indeed, many of the students have the similar questions like you. They are struggling about reading academy literature. For most of the English academic journals, the structures of literature review and the structure of writing a paper is very different from what we are reading in the daily life, like the newspaper, news articles, etc.
In the first chapter of this class, we will also introduce the commonly used databases in the tourism field, how to search the relevant information, and how to use the relevant information to support your own arguments in the literature. So I think in the first two chapters, you will understand how to systematically conduct a literature review in your thesis, and how to search the relevant information. Alright, so this will be very helpful for my thesis. Thank you. So, I think you can start to study the first two chapters. It will be very helpful for you at the moment. I see. Thank you. David, do have any expectations towards this class? Yes. Yes. Especially, it’s an online course.
Probably it’s different from other typical class, the typical offline class you’re having now. Do you have any expectations? One of the things I expect the most is to hear from different corners, different points of view on the topics that will be included in the online course. This would be an excellent opportunity for me not just to learn new knowledge, but also to widen my way of thinking. I believe that during the learning process, it is very important to get information from different sources. And by this we can have a more comprehensive understanding of different subjects. I think you get the chance, because this is also the reason why we wanna this class to be launched online.
By this way we have the opportunity to invite other leading scholars from all of the world. We have the renowned scholars from different countries in the world to show up in this subject and to share their own topics and their own ideas towards doing research. We even have the chance to invite some journal editors. For example, we have the chief editor from Annals of Tourism Research, Professor Scott McCabe. We also invite the chief editor from Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Professor Marianna Sigala. They will show up in this class and have a sharing with you.
Although it’s an online format, I think it’s very precious opportunity for you to hear the voices and also to hear the opinions from the different scholars. Thank you very much. Dr. Liu, I’m very excited about this and I’m looking forward to start the class. Thank you, David. Thanks for having you. I hope that you will have a good learning experience in this online course of Research Method. Not sure how many of you have similar questions like David, but I hope that in the coming semester, you can find your own answers from our course, Research Method. This course will systematically introduce the overview of the research method in tourism field. It elucidates the concepts, approaches and processes of conducting meaningful research.
It also empowers students to answer questions themselves. This course invites seminal scholars from the world to discuss real life examples and top journal publications. After this course, I hope that you should be able to understand how to raise a good research question, to comprehend different approaches to research method, to conduct specific data collection and analysis, to discuss the trends of future tourism research and to apply a particular research method into your own thesis or consultancy projects. Now, let’s start the class!
Welcome!
Before the start of the class, Dr. Liu, leading educator of this course, would like to hear some voices from the students. Dr. Liu is an assistant professor at College of Tourism and Service Management, Nankai University, China. Her research interests cover tourism sociology, qualitative research and tourism consumption.
In an academic world, raising a good research question is always the first step for starting a meaningful research. In the first week, we will deliver the content about raising research questions, information search and literature reading.
Before we continue, let’s get to know each other. We’d like to hear from you.
Where are you coming from and why are you taking this course?
Please introduce yourself to your peer learners and make friends with them in the comments section below.
Any comments from your personal experience will be helpful to us. Please feel free to leave a comment for one of our educators if you have any questions regarding this course.
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