Conducting academic/medical and other research requires a lot of time with a number of interviews and discussions to record, apart from the in-depth studies involved. All audio and video recordings obtained need to be made into neat transcripts, which researchers usually do with the help of a reliable provider of general transcription services. Most academics and researchers find outsourcing transcription a beneficial option with regard to ensuring accuracy, as well as saving time and effort. To gain clarity on how exactly an outside provider of transcription can help in academic research, let us consider an example.
Neurosciencenews.com recently carried an article on a study that revealed a link between aggression and the way people walk. Interesting indeed!
- The researchers evaluated the personalities of 29 participants before using motion capture technology to record them walking on a treadmill at their natural speed.
- They found that the exaggerated movement of the upper and lower body indicated aggression.
- The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that measured their levels of aggression.
- In addition, a standard personality test called the “big five” to evaluate personality traits such as conscientiousness, openness, extraversion, neuroticism and agreeableness was used.
These evaluation methods help to understand the way people think, feel and behave. If you are wondering what the significance of such research is, the study team says that identifying the potential relationship between an individual’s biological motion and their intention to engage in some kind of aggressive activity could be used to help prevent crime. In fact, CCTV observers can be trained to recognize the aggressive walk as demonstrated in this research and thus their ability to identify impending crimes could be further improved.
Coming back to the practicality of transcription services in such an instance, research studies such as the above must be very systematic. It requires data from various sources apart from the participants themselves that has to be methodically organized, transcribed and documented. For any research there are two types of data collection methods:
- Primary research: Primary research method includes collecting data from interviews, making observations, surveys, and questionnaires.
- Secondary research method: Secondary research involves referencing existing texts, and which could be published in journals, magazines or even available in various media resources.
The above mentioned research involved questionnaires. It would also have involved interviews with the participants, discussions among the researchers, interviews with authorities on the subject and so on. Transcripts of the audio recordings make future reference and sharing easy and hassle-free, and this is where researchers can utilize general transcription services to obtain quick and accurate documentation of interviews and other audio and video recordings.
- The transcripts provide ready reference material if you want to go back to the questions asked and the answers received.
- Multiple interviews that would otherwise require many hours to transcribe can be quickly transcribed with an outside partner providing the service. Compiling the required data becomes simpler.
Dividing responsibilities among the members of a team is always advisable when it comes to organized functioning and timely completion of any project. Researchers in many universities worldwide use outsourced transcription services extensively to focus more on their core research activities, and with successful outsourcing of the transcription responsibility study teams benefit from insightful transcripts.
