My Communication Research Methods course was a unique way to engage in communication inquiry. The purpose of this course is to teach students how research is conducted and how to create our own study. My group picked a topic based on interpersonal relationships, specifically looking into the relationship between a patient and their medical physician. We wanted to determine if the was a correlation between the amount of disclosure between the patient and their physician and if the patient and physician were of the same sex.

 

We created a hypothesis which we tested by creating and distributing a survey primarily to Bryant University students. We formulated questions about physician and patient relationships using a Likert scale and participants were able to rate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the statements.   After receiving our survey results, we ran a statistical test based on our hypothesis to determine if there was in fact a correlation between information disclosure and comfortability when it came to same-sex or different-sex relationships of patients and physician dyads. We hypothesized that patients would prefer to have a physician of the same sex, though our results so that there was no significance. Finally, we collected our results to write our research paper.

 

Through this experience, I was able to interpret, evaluate, and engage in the Communication research traditions in the discipline. Though it was challenging, I gained hands on experience which expanded my knowledge of the research that goes into Communication theories.