Revisiting the Idea of Being Research-Informed

I spent some time last week reading a bit of a music therapy journal. I am trying to figure out my personal process for becoming more "research-informed." I've got to tell you, it has all the things that really make me happy - color-coding, post-it notes, questions, and a problem to solve. These are all good things for me.

I went into this experience with the idea of clarifying what I already do when I read research to see what my experience is in a way to make it a bit more clear to me. (Confusing sentence, but it makes sense in my head!!) 

Here is what I discovered about my process.

I like reading research when it has direct implications for what I do with my clients.

I am drawn to description rather than to statistics.

I pay attention to quotations and remember those more than anything else about what I read.

I often use my post-its to write down memorable quotations, words I need to define, and thoughts that I have about what I am reading. I organize the post-its based on the type of thought that I have at the moment. My research reading is a rainbow of post-its - a different color for each type of thought.

To read a research article takes me a long time, so this will be a labor of love of music therapy and my clients.

I am going to refine my process even more in order to keep moving down this road of intentional use of research to inform my music therapy practice.

Thanks for going on this journey with me...