Research Project Overview

Throughout the entire semester you will work with a co-author to analyze a data set and present the results of your research in a Research Poster symposium during finals week. Regular homework assignments will serve as a first draft of exploration into your research questions, and helps you build your story. However expect to visualize and analyze your data outside the those assignments.

You will build up your project in phases, revising multiple times. Here is the general outline, with each phase is explained in detail further below.

  • Phase 1: Data and Topic approval
  • Phase 2: Introduce your project and variables of interest
  • Phase 3: Explore your data and relationships
  • Phase 4: Analyze bivariate relationships
  • Phase 5: Multivariable modeling
  • Phase 6: Summarize Findings

Poster development

You will be organizing your findings using a Google Slides template that will lead you through an organized approach to reporting research. This short format will also help you concisely explain your research findings in a way will be easier to translate (fit) onto a poster.

  • These slides stay in Google (are not submitted to Canvas) and are subject to the mastery based assessment discussed at the bottom of this page.
  • The contents of each slide are specified in the slide template and explained below.
    • You are welcome to have “staging” slides where you can dump content, thoughts, analyses that you may end up using. These extra slides should be at the END of the required slides.
  • There are also example slides from prior students as a references.

Phase 1: Data and Topic Propsal

Identify a research partner, propose a research topic and corresponding data set.

Open source data repositories to peruse:

Criteria for choosing a data set
  • You either know something about the topic or it is something you want to learn about
  • File type must be a .txt, .csv, .xlsx or .xls file
  • File size is less than 1 Gig
  • A codebook or data dictionary that fully explains what each variable means is available.
  • There are at least 200 rows (observations), but ideally between 500-10,000.
  • There are 10 or more unique and interesting variables
    • At least 4 quantitative variables
    • Variables are not functions of each other (e.g. weight in lbs and weight in kg)
    • Unique identifiers, dates, addresses, lat/long and other non-analyzable columns do not count

Your data set must be approved before you are allowed to work with it.

The sooner your data is approved the sooner you can work with it! If your proposed data set is turned down twice in a row get turned down, you will be required to use one of Dr. D’s curated data sets.

Phase 2: Introduce your research question and variables of interest

  1. Make a copy of this Template and save it in the Poster Prep folder in our Google Drive. This template provides instructions and tips on what should be included on each slide.
  2. Name your file using the last names of your research team in alphabetical order. E.g. Donatello, Raymond
  3. Fill out the required information on slides 1-5 (yellow).
  • Slide 01. Title
  • Slide 02. Introduction & Background
  • Slide 03. Research Gap & Purpose
  • Slide 04. Research Questions
  • Slide 05. Study Design & Data Source

Phase 3: Exploratory data analysis

Fill out the required information on slides 6-9 (blue).

  • Slide 06. Variables of Interest
  • Slide 07. Response Variable Description
  • Slide 08. Explanatory Variable Description
  • Slide 09. Descriptive Relationship

Phase 4: Bivariate Inference

Fill out the required information on slides 10-11 (purple).

Note that if you decided to change variables since the last time, you will need to update the corresponding descriptions and graphs on prior slides.

  • Slide 10. Statistical Analysis Methods
  • Slide 11. Bivariate Analysis Results
  • Slide 12. Model Assessment

Phase 5: Summarize Findings

Fill out the required information on slides 13-15 (orange).

  • Slide 13. Discussion & Conclusions
  • Slide 14. Implications & Limitations
  • Slide 15. References

Research Poster

  • You will transfer all findings into a research poster, print the poster, and then present your research to your classmates during our class final period in a poster symposium format.
  • Full guidelines including examples and evaluation criteria are written in this blog post.
  • Submit the poster file as printed to Canvas by the due date.

Draft version

This draft is graded based on how complete the poster is. You should consider this a draft that you would circulate to your colleagues for final review and comments. There is a rubric in Canvas with details.

Save your poster as a PDF and upload to the Poster-Draft folder in Google Drive.

Final Version

Upload your final poster as it is printed in PDF format Canvas.

Presentation at the Poster Symposium

When not presenting, you will walk around and learn about others research. Ask the presenters questions and fill out an evaluation form as you go. Poster scoring follows the above evaluation criteria and will be done via Google Forms. The link to this semesters form is in Canvas. Printed copies will be available upon request.

Peer Review

After selected phases your poster prep slides will be submitted for feedback, peer review and scoring. It is expected that you revise your work after each phase and review.

Peer reviews of the poster prep slides will occur as comments in google slides. See the Peer review section of the Learning Activities page for details.

Project Grading Method

This work will be done through a series of revisions gaining feedback from the instructor at each phase.

Each slide will be marked one of the following categories

  • Not Available: No content presented.
  • UN: Unsatisfactory level of work. Chances are you didn’t follow instructions.
  • BE: Below Expectations. Major revisions needed.
  • NR: Needs Revisions. You generally got it right, but some revisions are required. This is B level work.
  • ME : Meets Expectations. This may still come with revisions requested.

Rubric / Assessment form

Each team has their own ‘project assessment’ Google spreadsheet that shows you what achievement level you are at for each slide. It is locked to only view mode and only you and I have access to it. At the bottom of this file you will find a personalized grading rubric containing an estimate of your final score.

I will update your status column for the slides that are being assessed at that Phase, and enter your score into the Research Development assignment in Canvas.