Review of my project

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Time-management, strengths and weaknesses I am facing, and my project going further.

   My second attempt at a time-management plan titled 'Updated, detailed time-management' was infinitely more successful than the first which gave me a much more clear way to effectively pick times in which completing this project's research should be done. For example, having a date picked in which i planned to complete a set of five research based blog posts meant that I felt motivated and even almost obligated to fit the deadline. This is because having separate short term and long term goals forced me to become self aware that by completing my short term goals, my long term goals would subsequently be closer to being achievable. 

    I've been consistent in the amount of time I have spent per week on collecting information from my sources, understanding and summarising them, and formulating my own subjective interpretations of the things I have researched. One thing that has been a weakness of mine that I plan to gradually improve over time is evaluating my sources. While I have been evaluating sources, I recognise that I need to edit my evaluations and develop them into further detail. For example by assessing the credibility of authors and their competency to inform others on their work, the temporal validity of sources and whether they are recent enough to still be relevant now, the reliability of the website, video source or article that I found the source in, and many more things which affect how useful sources are in furthering my research in a credible way.

Comparing my goals to what I achieved

Goals that I set:

Blog posts to complete chronologically include:
  • Notable psychologists who studied false memories including links to the two other blog posts (next two in list) which are more detailed posts on the specific research carried out. 
  • Lost in the mall technique.
  • The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm.
  • The science of nostalgia.
  • False memory syndrome.
All to be completed by 31/02/2020

Comments:
  • I aimed to complete these blog posts by 31/02/2020 but had actually done so by 04/03/2020 which is close enough (four days late) to my personal deadline considering that I completed six blog posts as oppose to five.
  • Four of the five topics that I'd planned to research turned out to be a valid addition to my project and taught me a vast amount surrounding the primary research psychologists have conducted, educational information given online, and even an anecdote of an extreme account of false memories.
  • The topic of 'The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm', at the time seemed slightly irrelevant however I now realise that its seemingly mundane effects have large impacts sometimes. Therefore, at the time I made the decision to switch out further research into this phenomenon of inducing very benign false memories of simple words on people for a commentary on a Ted Talk that I came across about Carol Felstead's experience of false memories that arguably were a factor in her death. But I have factored in time in this coming few months to re-visit this idea as it gives good context for more significant events of false memories.
  • One strength with this method of planning was that it gave me a base of ideas that i could always fall back to when I was in a block of not knowing what to search for. This meant it was far less intimidating than attempting to draw up fresh ideas on the spot every time I had planned to focus on writing or looking for sources on google scholar etc.
  • It also allowed me to use my energy to develop these starting points into interesting perspectives onto the topics, allowing me to debate different points of view on research as oppose to a surface-level regurgitation of information from one single source.

New plans going forward

Long term plan:
May: Break in research to focus on exams.
July: Focus on primary research.  (soon to make a separate post explaining why I believe I should focus on secondary research only and not do primary research).
July-August: Finalise research.
August-October: Work on and complete first draft of dissertation. 
October-November: Complete final product.
November-December- Prepare and complete presentation.

Short term plan:

Blog posts to complete chronologically include:
  • Reasons for cancelling primary research idea.
  • How false memories are formed.
  • The two main paradigms of false memories.
  • Most recent scientific breakthroughs or explanations on false memories.
  • Can people prevent or reduce the production of false memories and if so, should they?
All to be completed by 30/04/2020

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