Why "Do Your Own Research" Is Bad Advice

"Earlier in my career of teaching critical thinking (CT), I would advise students to "do their research." I typically meant this in two ways. First, as these were often psychology students in a traditional university, chances were that they would actually, at some stage soon, conduct their own research - likely as part of an undergraduate project and, perhaps thereafter, a master's or PhD level dissertation, or even a post-doctoral project."

"There are varying degrees of the extent to which research can be conducted. As in the case of our students, one can conduct actual research through collecting data, analysing it, and maybe even getting it published through the peer-review process (i.e., primary research). You could also read and review, say, 30 peer-reviewed journal articles on a topic and report back findings (such as through secondary research)."

"Be that as it may, anything less than a secondary review of the topic area is kind of a stretch in terms of "doing research." As per that last example, you could just read those papers to inform yourself about the topic - your purpose for doing so might be to help you make a decision (as opposed to writing a review and directly engaging the field). I would call that "educating oneself," definitely, but research, probably not."

Teaching critical thinking often includes advising students to "do their research," with two primary interpretations: conducting primary empirical studies or performing thorough secondary literature reviews. Primary research involves collecting and analysing data, potentially leading to peer-reviewed publication. Secondary research requires systematic reading, synthesis, and critical appraisal of many peer-reviewed sources and demands specific methodological know-how. Casual reading to inform personal decisions can be described as educating oneself rather than conducting research. Proper literature review techniques and evaluative effort serve as the cut-off between mere information-gathering and legitimate research practice.

Read at Psychology Today