A brief moment of time

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the glorious moment of time between the end of the data gathering phase and the data evaluation phase.

I am currently in a very exciting phase of my research. After a lot of plannings, preparations and discussions, one of my research projects has finally started. Moreover, I even got the first results out of this project and soon I will be able to take a first look at them in order to analyze and compare these datasets. If I am lucky, then these results will prove my hypotheses or at least provide me with some more insights into my research topic. Unfortunately, other projects are keeping me away from evaluating these results and so I am still excited about this mysterious package of surveys which is lying around on my desk. In this case, I like to share my excitement about this special moment with you.

Personally, I think this is one of the best moments in the whole process of doing research. After many hours of preparation, the experiment finally begins and the first results are created. Once the first datasets are accumulated, it is like having a gift-wrapped surprise. At first, these datasets are just some collections of numbers without a specific meaning. The data could be anything like the gift-wrapped surprise. However, after evaluating and comparing these numbers (or removing the wrapping paper), their secret is suddenly revealed and they can become an evidence for a correlation. Unfortunately, the result of the evaluation can also be the opposite and no correlation was found at all.

Luckily, the brief moment of time between the end of the creative planning phase and the statiscal evaluation is a moment full of dreams, hopes and mysteries. The data gathered during the experiments could mean anything and as long as the data are not analyzed, they will keep their mystery. As soon as the datasets are processed, all the dreams will come true or will be crushed. After the secrets of the datasets are revealed, the usual work process will take over once again. The evaluation is followed by the process of explaining the results and hopefully making them accessible to the whole world.

As already mentioned I am currently in this mysterious phase where everything is possible. It is just exciting to glance at the bundle of surveys lying on my desk and to think about the possible results. Soon, I will remove the wrapping paper, start to analyse these numbers and face the reality of the results. But right now, everything is possible.