Exploring Research worksheet

You are required to complete the tasks on this sheet and place the content in your website section called
RESEARCH. You will be looking at three sections, these should be clear on the page. They are in RED on this
document.

Task 1/3: Tools

You are required to think about each of the following tools for research and talk about advantages, disadvantages and show
an example. A table has been included to help with this, or you can create headings on the Weebly page for each one.
Write detailed answers for each box and add an image for each example (this could be a photo, logo, etc).

Tool Advantage Disadvantage Example (with photo/url evidence)

Lots of written resources
Access to computers and
Internet
Not many distractions and
more accountability
LRC
Well-organised and you can
get assistance on where things
are and knowledge from
librarian
Boring
No group discussion
Some people may prefer to
work from the comfort of your
own home
Not accessible all day either
due to travel or it not being
open at all times

Are usually accurate Can have outdated or have

Portable and doesn’t need
charging or Wi-Fi
Books Not as bad for your health as
phone screens
Good for grammar, language
complexity and critical thinking
More information
Can be updated
Easily accessible info
Different medias and mediums
Web of information for suiting your
research
Can be accessed nearly
anywhere
disproven information
Can be damaged
May have to be bought or The Illusion Of Life (12 Principles)
acquired which may be hard to
afford or find
Finite information
Higher chance of false Academy of Animation
information
Internet access and power
required along with a device to
access it

Good for visual learners Clickbait for views AlanBeckettTutorials

Video essays Need to be able to watch and
Easier to understand if tired listen to it (hard to in public)
Copyrighted video
Quantity vs quality of videos:
YouTube
hard to find useful information
in a sea of bad videos
Can be time-consuming (faster
to speed-read text)
Requires
You can reference others Extremely opinion-based r/Animation (Subreddit dedicated
videos and photography on Website could crash to Animation)
Instagram Censorship
Reddit and Discord are very Radicalisation
focused and specified around
certain things so finding people
Social
with lots of knowledge in said
media/forum
topics is easy
Discussion is very easy which
can help you reinforce your
knowledge
Talk to people all across the
world from your phone
Streaming Documentaries Can cost a lot of money Disney +
services Making of/Behind the scenes especially if you need to get (lots of animated films for
 of their shows which is very
important for media studies
High budget
Some of it is downloadable
Exists forever and you can rip
the videos off of the discs
Always accessible
Contains extras and bonus
content
DVD/Blu-ray
multiple different services in reference)
order to get what you want to
watch
Over-dramatization
Requires internet access
Financially driven so
documentaries can be biased
Region-locked content
Content is removed due to
censorship
Disc damage
You need a DVD player
Lose them
Some are no longer in
production so can be hard to
find
Information can become
outdated
Can cost lots of money

Task 2/3: Methods

This time think about each of the methods in the table below and consider what the benefits and drawbacks of them are.

Method Advantage Disadvantage

You can get people’s opinions on things
Get important feedback
Can be quantitative and qualitative
Conducting
Scale of feedback or information
survey
Primary source (recorded accurately)
 No geographic or time-related restrictions to who
can do the survey
Gives opportunity for unexpected or
Interviewing Body language
people Qualitative and Quantitative questions
Discussion can flow in different directions
Can be diverse (with various opinions)
Group
discussions
You have full control over the research to suit your
Primary needs
research You know that it s unbiased and trustworthy as you
were the one who conducted the study
You do not need to conduct the research yourself
Big companies are able to get large amounts of
Secondary accurate data which you may not have been able to
Research get on your own
People may put joke answers
People can not do it
People can give useless answers or not tell you
what you want
Time-consuming to set up
Time-consuming
Might be hard to interview the people you want
due to scheduling and other things
People may be disingenuous
Some people just don’t say anything
Some people say too much which overshadows
others
Conflict
People’s contributions can influence others’
Limited resources and scope
Independent research which might not be good
for the socially awkward
Requires lots of time and effort
May not be suited to your specific needs
May be biased
You don’t know how they conducted the
research exactly and the factors involved

You can learn people’s opinions and feelings Harder to analyse results and come to a
Qualitative Can give you more in-depth insight and nuance specific general conclusion
Data compared to hard statistics
Can identify patterns and trends
Completely subjective
Quantitative Easily measurable and easy to come to conclusions Can be misleading
Data with its results You lack the context you get from
Seems more prestigious than qualitative data
 qualitative data

Task 3/3: Skills

Finally, think about what skills you should be working on when conducting research. You can consider the animation you’ll
be making when answering these questions if it helps.

Skill How I will do this

Finding the How can I contact them? What restrictions/categories might I think about? DEMOGRAPHICS
right audience Create an online form and ask people to fill it in
to ask
Asking the What do I want to know? What type of questions do I ask
right What are your favourite animations and why. How do these animations make you feel and how do they
questions achieve that?
Interpreting How will I show what trends I’ve learnt from this?
the answers Collate and compare similar answers
usefully