First Reflection.

I had chosen to do my Extended Essay in Psychology. I find it a very interesting subject which has several areas of human development being continuously researched upon. I began by reading articles on various topics before shortlisting the one that I finalized. I used reference books, google scholar and JSTOR to find relevant and reliable researches. While researching I changed my topic from aggression to depression to sleep deprivation. I finalized sleep deprivation instead of aggression or depression as I see a lot of us facing issues with sleep deprivation due to the pressure of studies in the crucial years of grade 10 and 12. I wanted to explore the impact of sleep deprivation on cognitive functioning especially in adolescents as I could relate better to this age group. During research I struggled a lot to find researches on the counter argument because not many were done on appropriate sleep and cognition. To ensure that I stay on the topic and don’t deviate, I used a visual mind-map.

Second Reflection

As I progressed further with my research, I was able to make a lot of connection between the studies and the RQ. I had to make changes in the approach, when during the discussion with my supervisor, we reflected on the need of a strong counter argument relevant to the RQ. During this period, I had learnt a lot about researching, we have to use a lot of perspectives in order to get good studies. During this period I also figured out that I had to be very patient, determined and focused while conducting a research like this because I had to go through a lot of journals and articles. I could not afford to lose any piece of information because it might play a major role in the essay so I learnt to effectively use bookmarks and also did citations parallely. Now I will be able to do such researches ahead as I got a better understanding of how to do it.

Third Reflection

If I were to undertake my research again I could use cognitive impairment as my first variable and then try to find factors which would affect it so that I could find more varieties of research. However, changing variables would only give deeper insight to my work, it won’t affect the researches chosen for this essay as they are quite substantial and detailed. All the strategies used were appropriate, but spending more quality time on research will be a must. From this I also conclude that research based essays offer multiple perspectives. With such extensive researches available for similar topics, lastly one needs to be very judicial in making correct decisions about the choice for researches relevant to the research question.