_3 months of stipend?_
Anthony looked at the name in the briefcases and saw that they are 'repeat balls', a type of Pokeballs that works best if the Pokemon it will try to capture is something that is already obtained by the trainer, this is specially popular to either rookies that wanted to mono type or mono species or trainers that wanted to find a mate/training partner of the same skillset as their Pokemon so that the Pokemon can see how can its move be possibly countered, etc.
_That's... around 1,000 Pokedollars, and if Melissa spent 3 months' worth of stipend, that means the stipend is around 100,000 Pokedollars per month? Damn, when I was in college, mine was just about 20k, which actually came down to luck since my program isn't a priority... I don't even have a thesis stipend while also being pressured by our panelists to produce publish-worthy work... somehow it got through..._
Anthony was basking in envy while Mary also did the calculations and looked at him in shock before both of them looked at Melissa.
_This should be the gifts given to respondents after the research. I heard from one of my friends before that this is more common in experimental or quasi-experimental research. I myself never gave souvenirs because the respondents will just see my face once in the whole data collection method, and don't need pre-test or post-test or anything like that..._
Anthony aimed that if he ever get to convince himself to do research for his advancement in the breeding world, he would not use experimental research design to save money, this is specially became a stronger conviction of Anthony when he remembered that Melissa has about 350 participants, this is a number that Anthony have no idea how Melissa got, because surely, with the formula he knew in getting sample sizes and the number of trainers, 350 is somewhat small.
_In any case, I don't want to put myself in that situation._
Anthony sighed before walking with Mary and walking to continue their internship hours, and the moment they were done, Anthony finished training his Miltank in the Pokémon gym. Melissa sent a memo for another meetup in the battle stadium, where they were first instructed by Prof. Oak. As expected by Anthony and the others, about 5 associate field researchers are in their office to discuss their accepted research proposal, most of whom are developmental, and Melissa's dissertation might be more tamed as the output it has is whether it's good for trainers to know how to titrate.
There are associate field researchers who wanted to develop a diagnostic tool in the form of test questions with illustrations about whether someone is ready to be an associate field researcher, someone who wanted to make an ear pods version of the Pokedex where it won't have pictures projected but rather only an AI sensor that tells a program what Pokemon it is before telling the details of the Pokemon to the ears of the trainer.
For one, Anthony saw a study about the current attitude of 'traditional' and 'liberal' academics in Pokémon training schools with regard to the declining enrollment rate of their institutions, which will be held in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh.
_This world really is addicted to developments rather than attitudes... this might be because researchers are in the field and can see the actual situation and the tools that are needed for training, the social science study too is actually needed so that the Pokemon World can find solutions for Pokemon trainers not to rely on Pokedex too much to raw dog the world, which will make the disaster and risk reduction efforts of the league to be more advanced._
And as Anthony expected, all of the associate field researchers who presented their accepted proposals asked for interns to help them in distributing questionnaires in exchange for, of course, additional experience, additional grades, and a share in the souvenirs that will be given to the participants. For the sake of familiarity, Anthony choose to be a helper of Melissa, of course their is also the temptation of visiting Pokemon training academies for the unknown associate field researcher, but because Anthony get to know according to the dissertations presented to them that developmental, or at least experimental research is the zeitgeist of the Pokemon world, he still wanted to learn how normally does the data collection of this research design works.
In the world of research, while being unique and novel is a good trait for a research title, it often means a smaller population and purposive sampling, which is, for someone as lazy as Anthony, a very bad idea. So, it's better to go with the trend so that he can... well, ride in the shoulder of giants.
Prof. Oak's developmental research instrument is now the widely acclaimed Pokedex, after all. And, Anthony alongside other 3 who are interested to be part of Melissa's team was given a more comprehensive rundown of the research, the approved and validated research instrument that would be converted into a flip classroom and then will be validated again before officially floating it as well as the reward that would come with it, like a certificate that would come that one can use for credentials among other things.
Anthony's not going to lie, when he heard the fact that they have to attend another seminar during the night (now, of course not held in an open battle field) to learn how to teach in a flipped classroom, specifically the 'before class' part, he was rather mortified, though because it was already his decision to help Melissa out. After this, Anthony learned in the conversations during dinner that his classmates had never searched what a flipped classroom is.
How can you become a researcher if you don't know the common jargon in teaching? Is the first question of Anthony in his mind, but seeing that, well, everyone is here to count Charizards from the mouth of a volcano, he just lets them be. After all, how many people are like him, someone reincarnated who has friends in all programs at his university?
Well, Anthony wished not many, so he left it at that and just let his busy internship life, which unexpectedly doesn't involve a lot of Pokémon battles despite being trained to be a future researcher of Pokemons for another week. During this span, Anthony learned how to teach using a flipped classroom, which is, in fact, a very simple way to tell that every discussion will be moved before class, while every activity will happen during class, and mostly consultations after class.
Coincidentally, Anthony experienced this in their general education history class, wherein they will be given a lot of video lectures during the weekends or before the next day of class, and then activities or assessments during class. In this study, the role of the teacher is the 'before' and some 'during' sessions in the lab where they are in charge of inviting trainers through random sampling in Pallet Town, the teammates of Anthony on Melissa's side already targeted a lot of trainers who are clustering on the beach, as well as those taking a vacation home to home.
Their part is quite easy as the study materials will be given in video formats rather than online classes, that means they just have to send these recordings to interested trainers, make them sign the voluntary participation waiver and then make sure that they will be present during the 'during class' event in the lab where they will be allowed to do gravimetric and titrimetric analyses.
Also, apparently, Melissa already used some channels to partner with the Nurse Joys, who, besides them, will distribute their faces and will let trainers use the equipments of the lab of the Pokémon Center to let the trainers go for their self-learning. Anthony noted that this is only possible in the world of Pokemon as there's no way anyone will be patient enough to be on the acceptable standards of analytical chemists of the lab to be 'knowledgeable' in using these analyses tools, it's just that it's very useful to be able to do such things alone and without the need of labs (there are a lot of foldables in the world of Pokemon).
So any participants of the study will be having free tutorials on how analyze the potency of the poison of their Pokemons or even just their general conditions, after all, a lot of medical information can be procured from just a single urinary sample or saliva of a Pokemon.
_So if this dissertation is successful, the league will be putting efforts into popularizing these analyses... should I also put up something that can be used by the Pokémon world in general? Well, of course, there is a lot of research in my world that are used by that world, but all I see is the ones at universities and those that are used by the researcher to build a business, I once saw a sipa palm tree shake business display the volume where the article was published and make it a part of its marketing..._
Anthony remembered his searches on the prominent research journals in the Pokémon world, and indeed, it's focused on developing something to answer a physical problem rather than answering a question; they were named like: International Journal of Pokémon Training Risk Reduction and Management, International Journal of Developmental Pokémon Training, and there was also research on Pokémon Breeding as well as academia.
Of course International journals in social sciences, history, and more are also present but are rather less prominent than the developmental ones, relatively, of course.
_I would probably, if I ever become more mature, conduct developmental research, but I would need to think things through first. First of all, I don't know what the hell I will develop. Second of all, I have to gaslight myself that I am not avoiding research like the plague._
Anthony, again had another certificate in his sleeve to use in his credentials, and in the following week, Anthony and his companions started going to the beach with the online drive link of their videos in toe and asked a lot of trainers who are there to catch Pokemons or just dilly dally and asked them if they wanted to be respondents, which somehow, made them excited and readily agreed.
It was, as Anthony expected, a free lesson on how to make their journey cost-effective, which is something the Pokémon trainers want. Because of this, Anthony and the team was able to complete their qouta in just about 4 hours, including the house to house they have planned, this caused Anthony to have ample time to participate in the scheduled internship duties that he has as well as train Zubat and Miltank in the following days as he wasn't that busy, of course, it was a perfunctory duty that he check on the progress of the respondents in the corresponding lab and pokemon centers some time.
But all in all, floating of the instrument is surprisingly easy, primarily because the respondents didn't refuse the free lecture (and because they needed it). This didn't make Antony believe that research is any easier, but it does give him insights on how to utilize interns and the fact that you can do just that for your professional development.
_Whatever, it's still a long way, anyway... but I need to ask about things that are done, after all, my mom and dad are not primary research experts, I can only fester Melissa._
This is something that Anthony immediately did as part of the 'during' part of the data collection process; he asked a plethora of questions to Melissa while also nabbing one or two questions on Prof. Oak from time to time. This, of course, caused a misunderstanding between his classmates, who are now thinking that he got fascinated by producing dissertations.
Anthony can't be bothered to defend himself and just did as he was scheduled; he did the tasks of an intern, a data collector, and asked questions, all this while he's at it, and continued to develop his Miltank, too. Speaking of which, Anthony has also become satisfied with the current progress of Miltank and Zubat, who continued to battle amongst themselves for the sake of training, causing them to have serendipitous encounters and learn some new moves.
This, alongside his lab reports that he's required to pass, is, of course, well documented, which somehow became another routine of Anthony's.
Just like that, the month of February has arrived.