My understanding of the research process has changed through writing my EE as I have learned the importance of testing the strength of a hypothesis before conducting experiments and further research for the investigation. This can be in terms of not only researching the independent variable being tested in the essay but also extraneous variables that (in this case) affected the growth of the bacteria such as temperature. This gave me a better sense of the mechanisms of the bacteria and helped me use the internet more efficiently. In addition, I had to use my critical thinking skills to apply findings and sources not necessarily investigating the same research question as me but had valuable information that I could use and interpret. Testing out hypotheses also came in the form of a pilot study which I previously thought was unimportant. Even though the findings were in line with what I expected, it is important to make sure a method works and the results have the potential to be analyzed. (169)
