EE

My resilience has strengthened during the EE process as after writing my first draft, I realised that only having secondary data and a small amount of primary data was not allowing me to fully explore my research question. I then had to gather additional primary data, which was challenging because the casino had strict privacy policies and did not disclose much information themselves. Therefore, I created a survey and stood outside the casino for hours each day to gather quantitative data, which strengthened the analysis and conclusions of my EE. Conducting a survey also improved my communication skills, because I had to attract numerous busy casino visitors to fill out my survey, to gain different perspectives on the issue. This involved fully explaining my investigation, and its goals and purposes to each respondent, trying to ensure they give truthful responses, as the quality of my communication would impact the accuracy and reliability of my investigation.

The EE process has strengthened my analytical skills, as I had to change the focus of my research question, which opened up room to explore government policies in more detail. I also decided to change from investigating only the occurrence of problem gambling to its impact, which created a balance between the qualitative and quantitative aspects of my EE. My communication skills also improved, especially during gathering primary data from the main organization in Singapore that handles problem gambling, because they are a psychiatric facility as well and have stringent rules regarding privacy. Therefore, I was not allowed to physically go to the organization, so through communicating with them only by Email, I had to secure an interview with them. The interview was conducted over Email as well, so it limited the scope of my questions and their answers, but it did give me numerical data as well as qualitative data to support my investigation.

I have learned to apply my critical thinking skills in the EE process, as I had to refine my research question significantly from my initial idea. This required me to read and research heavily on the topic of casinos and gambling, and after evaluating whether to explore the duopoly of casinos in Singapore or the Singaporean government’s intervention in casinos, I decided to focus on the latter. I also had to channel my creative thinking skills during narrowing and researching the topic of my investigation as I needed to find a unique angle for my EE, to make it more interesting and give my analysis more depth. I decided on looking specifically at problem gambling and its addictive nature, which also an element of qualitative analysis to my investigation, as well as gives me an opportunity to extend myself in sourcing primary data, given the numerous ways to collect data on human behaviours and their effect with regards to gambling.