Is it Worth the Wings?: A Collaborative Research Project
Hello! Welcome to the website. This site was created for our Writing, Research, and Technology course at Rowan University.
INTRODUCTION
Wow! What a journey we've had while developing this collaborative research project. We began our project believing that we wanted to research food labels, ingredients, and consumer knowledge about ingredients. However, after several workshop sessions, we narrowed our primary research down to a single product and our research question became: "What are the health effects of the Red Bull energy drink with and without alcohol?" We decided to search for data about Red Bull's key ingredients, health effects of using Red Bull with alcohol, using Red Bull while exercising and college-aged consumer knowledge about the beverage.
There are several reasons we felt inspired to conduct research on Red Bull energy drink. The first reason was because one of our group members was a Red Bull junkie. She would consume the beverage whenever she needed an energy boost and often mixed it with alcohol. Because she had no idea of the side effects of using this beverage, we thought it could be an eye opening and educational experience for her. At first were were concerned that she would be potentially biased about the product since she was an active consumer, however; it was quickly revealed that she was eager to learn about the product and how it affected her health.
Another reason we felt inspired to do this research is because we had no prior knowledge of the beverage's key ingredients. We were curious as to whether or not the ingredients were known to be healthy or if they were known to be detrimental to one's health. Finally, we were intrigued and concerned to find out the Red Bull is not regulated by the FDA. When we found this out, we were even more determined to understand the product.
Our Collaborative Research Project is the product of both hierarchical and dialogic collaboration. At the start of the project were were working in a strictly hierarchical method. We decided to use this divide and conquer approach to explore our primary and secondary research questions. At the time, our plan was to simply divide all labor and put the project together when we were finished. However, after our initial research, we had the opportunity to workshop our project further and moved into a dialogic approach. It was dialogic because we worked together as a group to revise our primary research question, develop supplemental questions, and create an abstract. During this process we bounced ideas off one another and each brought our own unique schemas to the table. After doing this, we revised our project to reflect our discussions. As we moved further into the research project we continued on a dialogic path as we worked together to create questions for our candid interviews. However, at the end of the project, we moved back to a hierarchical approach as we all worked on individual sections of our final project and then put it together to form a whole.
Now that you understand our project, please explore the various sections of our website to learn about the ingredients of Red Bull, the effects of Red Bull with alcohol, the effects of Red Bull and exercise, and our candid interviews that provide insight into consumption and knowledge of Red Bull by college students.
After you've explored the website, drop us a line and let us know.. IS IT WORTH THE WINGS?
There are several reasons we felt inspired to conduct research on Red Bull energy drink. The first reason was because one of our group members was a Red Bull junkie. She would consume the beverage whenever she needed an energy boost and often mixed it with alcohol. Because she had no idea of the side effects of using this beverage, we thought it could be an eye opening and educational experience for her. At first were were concerned that she would be potentially biased about the product since she was an active consumer, however; it was quickly revealed that she was eager to learn about the product and how it affected her health.
Another reason we felt inspired to do this research is because we had no prior knowledge of the beverage's key ingredients. We were curious as to whether or not the ingredients were known to be healthy or if they were known to be detrimental to one's health. Finally, we were intrigued and concerned to find out the Red Bull is not regulated by the FDA. When we found this out, we were even more determined to understand the product.
Our Collaborative Research Project is the product of both hierarchical and dialogic collaboration. At the start of the project were were working in a strictly hierarchical method. We decided to use this divide and conquer approach to explore our primary and secondary research questions. At the time, our plan was to simply divide all labor and put the project together when we were finished. However, after our initial research, we had the opportunity to workshop our project further and moved into a dialogic approach. It was dialogic because we worked together as a group to revise our primary research question, develop supplemental questions, and create an abstract. During this process we bounced ideas off one another and each brought our own unique schemas to the table. After doing this, we revised our project to reflect our discussions. As we moved further into the research project we continued on a dialogic path as we worked together to create questions for our candid interviews. However, at the end of the project, we moved back to a hierarchical approach as we all worked on individual sections of our final project and then put it together to form a whole.
Now that you understand our project, please explore the various sections of our website to learn about the ingredients of Red Bull, the effects of Red Bull with alcohol, the effects of Red Bull and exercise, and our candid interviews that provide insight into consumption and knowledge of Red Bull by college students.
After you've explored the website, drop us a line and let us know.. IS IT WORTH THE WINGS?