SURP Projects
CLA Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP)
Faculty Projects, Summer 2022
Media Representations of Video Game Stereotypes
Dr. Aubrie Adams
Communications Studies Department
Number of Students: 2
Project Description:
Video games today represent a tremendously diverse category of media tools that can be used in both positive and negative ways. However, little is known regarding how video games are portrayed in fictional media content or how gamers themselves may be stereotyped in such media depictions. This is worth investigating because media representations ultimately impact how people perceive video games and how people behave when playing them. The goal of this project is to explore gamer stereotypes in fictional media depictions. Through this investigation, we will learn what informs perceptions towards gamers and gamer culture to identify whether diverse gamers may be stereotyped in overly simplistic ways, which could be ultimately harmful to individuals and society. In order to explore gamer stereotypes, this study uses a method of investigation called a content analysis. A content analysis is a method of gathering data and learning about a phenomenon through the process of observing media content and counting how often a type of behavior or portrayal occurs.
Desired Student Qualifications:
Working independently, students will (1) watch fictional media content (related to video games) as displayed on TV shows (e.g., The Guild & Mythic Quest); (2) identify positive and negative stereotypes related to gamers; and (3) write up our findings in the form of a research paper suitable for conference presentation. SURP students will be trained on how to identify stereotypes and how to document the frequency in which stereotypes occur (a process called coding). Desired student qualifications include the following:
- Comfortable watching television content for extended periods of time
- Skills in editing collaborative Google documents such as Google Sheets
- Proficiency in interpreting and summarizing scholarly research articles
- Ability to engage in writing using a social science or scholarly style
- Capable of working independently (with Zoom meetings for training & collaboration)
- Willingness to learn about video games, gamers, gamer culture, and gamer identity
I consider mentoring students an important component of my role as a professor. My goal is to provide students with the necessary training, experience, and skills to become educated citizens who understand and take part in scholarly investigations. I also hope that I can provide students with encouragement, support, and additional resources so that they can attend academic conferences and achieve their own unique goals.
Adapting UX Research Methods for Theatre Audiences
Dr. Lauren Beck
Interdisciplinary Studies in Liberal Arts
Number of Students: 1
Project Description:
Theatre artists are increasingly creating immersive, interactive, and technologically mediated works. These experiences are often more like playing video games, using a smartphone app, or exploring an escape room. Theatre’s new active audiences have different skills, backgrounds, and experiences that affect their interaction with these works. Theatre has become an increasingly interdisciplinary art and field of study that has embraced digital technologies but has yet to adopt some practices from the tech world when researching audiences or “users.” The field of User Experience Design employs well-developed tools for learning how and why users (customers, audiences, or players) use digital products and services, finding pain points, and actively creating previously unexplored design features and user experiences. The culture of theatre art and scholarship has yet to explore the possibilities of borrowing from the field of UX to help analyze audience experiences before, during, and after the creation of theatre events. This potential shift to human-centered theatre design could have consequential effects on the potential accessibility–physically, socially, culturally, economically, and geographically–of those who have been previously excluded from immersive and interactive theatre.
Desired Student Qualifications:
Students should have an interest in careers in either UX Design/Research and/or Theatre Design/Production/Direction. There is a dearth of research in this area, and students will have the ability to create new knowledge that directly impacts both scholarship and professional work. I will task the student researcher with assembling a list of current audience research methodologies as well as UX research methods and human-centered design principles. The student researcher will work with me to develop an audience research protocol that could be applied to immersive, interactive, and/or digitally mediated works of theatre. The student researcher will need to commit to beginning in June and participating in two brief meetings a week over Zoom. This student would ideally have some prior knowledge or coursework in UX/UI design, human-centered design, or design thinking. An interest in theatre or immersive/interactive experiences is a bonus! The student should have a desire to work collaboratively with me to solve problems through research and creative thinking.
Scrolling Through Social Media: The Impact of Randomly Presented Videos on Memory
Dr. Kelly Bennion
Psychology and Child Development
Number of Students: 2
Project Description:
Although one can argue whether it is important to remember content viewed via social media, TikTok videos provide an excellent, dynamic stimuli set to help researchers determine how we remember real-life information. Along the same lines, in the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), Neil Postman explored a rising trend in local television newscasts: the tendency to present news as disconnected, “bite-size” chunks of information lasting ~45-90 seconds. He argued that this tendency, which he coined the “And now...this!” effect, hijacked viewers’ attention span by constantly refocusing their attention – to the detriment of their comprehension. Accordingly, research showed that this had devastating effects on memory: In one study, 79% of audience members could not freely recall a single news item an hour after a typical newscast. While such performance seems exceptionally poor, memory researchers (and Postman himself) suggest this forgetting occurs because presenting information in this manner prevents viewers from connecting and integrating the information. These impoverished memory effects appear even more troublesome when considering social media: Scrolling through Facebook or Twitter or cycling through TikTok videos is akin to the “And now...this!” effect on steroids, with faster turnover between bits of information (often 15 seconds or less) and arguably even less integration between them. However, just as television consumers could opt for more continuously presented shows like 60 Minutes, social media consumers could resist this stream of novelty and search for information in a directed, integrated manner – if they recognize the problem with randomly arranged feeds. We hypothesize that participants will better remember related (vs. unrelated) videos and that the extent of this benefit will correlate with the relatedness of the videos to one other, as judged by independent raters.
Data (N = 500) on the effects of related vs. unrelated videos on memory have already been collected, some of these data still need to be scored and organized for analysis. SURP students will look at participants’ responses and identify which video participants were describing, the level of detail with which the participant recalled the data, whether the participant had a false memory, and any notes. Students will also peruse the already-scored data spreadsheets, identify which rows are missing ratings, resolve any discrepancies between the two raters who had rated each video, and calculate interrater reliability. SURP students will also run a follow-up study via Zoom, investigating how these videos within categories relate to one another. Here, they will be responsible for scheduling participants, sending reminder emails, giving instructions, organizing data, and data scoring. Finally, students will assist with statistical analyses both on the memory and relatedness findings, and then prepare a poster presentation for the SURP Symposium in Fall 2022. All would be done under my mentorship with weekly meetings to guide the process.
Desired Student Qualifications:
Experience coding (in any language) would be a huge asset but is not required. Other preferred experience includes having taken PSY 440 (Memory), as well as familiarity with Microsoft Excel, SPSS, and a comfort in learning new technology and with computer skills generally. Finally, PSY/CD majors who have not yet completed PSY/CD 448 and/or PSY/CD 449 (Research Internship I and II) and who would continue in my lab for their internship requirement would be ideal applicants as well. While these are all desired student qualifications, it is much more important for the students to be hard-working, responsible, self-motivated, organized, have strong time management skills, a flexible schedule, and to be interested in research (in memory or cognitive psychology/neuroscience more broadly).
Sacred Sexuality: Exploring Past and Present LGBT Religious Activism
Dr. RG Cravens
Political Science
Number of Students: 2
Project Description:
This project explores the historical and contemporary experiences of religious LGBTQ people as they navigate cis- and heteronormative religious and political environments in the United States. For the project, students will work with a corpus of newsletters from an LGBTQ-affirming religious denomination. One student will work with scanned copies of Metropolitan Community Church-Portland newsletters (called The Chalice) published from about 1974 – about 1980. One student will work with scanned copies of More Light Presbyterians newsletters published from 1979 – about 1985, focusing on several issues that detail the work of “The Lazarus Project” – an outreach ministry of the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church led by and designed for LGBTQ parishioners. Students will then carry out content analysis of 30 anonymized interview transcripts with LGBTQ people (~4 weeks). This will involve coding and weekly research meetings with Dr. Cravens. Students will keep detailed research journals and spend approximately one week writing-up their findings in the form of a 5-7-page research report. At the end of each 4-week period, assistants will be required to produce a memo detailing their findings (approximately 3 pages). Additional details will be discussed with the selected student researchers.
Desired Student Qualifications:
Students should have some experience with qualitative analysis. Student experience with content analysis is preferred.
Does Accessibility of Online Mental Health Services Impact College Students’ Misuse of Mental Health Prescription Drugs?
Dr. Anuraj Dhillon
Communication Studies Department
Number of Students: 1
Project Description:
Given the mental health challenges college-students face, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students may turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms to increase concentration/productivity, as well as to minimize anxiety/stress. As such, prior research finds that 17% of college aged students misuse ADHD drugs, either in the form of overdose or taking the medication without a prescription at all (McIntosh, 2015). With the high risk for college students to misuse mental health medication, specifically ADHD schedule II drugs like Adderall and Ritalin (Erickson, 2016), it is relevant to explore whether online mental health care companies are contributing to an emerging mental health drug abuse and dependency epidemic among college-aged students. By using language, such as accessible, affordable, consistent mental health care, these mental health care companies specifically target college students by advertising their services through platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, which are often used by college-aged students (Wayt, 2022). Therefore, this proposed project aims to understand the prevalence of online mental health services usage among college aged students, explore the motivations that propel college students to subscribe to online mental health services, and likelihood of abuse. The project will further identify communication channels through which college-aged students are being exposed to such services and explore the marketing and communication strategies of these companies that lure college students to subscribe to their service. Understanding the communication strategies of these mental health start-ups and the increased accessibility of prescription mental health drugs available online may help developing targeted interventions that might prevent mental health drug misuse and dependency among college students. Findings from this project will be used to generate publications and conference presentations. Undergraduate researchers may be included in the conference presentations and/or publications (based on their contribution), and students will be offered an opportunity to continue working on subsequent research related to this area at student discretion.
Desired Student Qualifications:
Students must be enthusiastic about social scientific research preferably in the field of communication. Although students do not need to have any prior experience, coursework in empirical research methods from a CLA department is preferred. Finally, working with students who are motivated, organized, and responsible makes the research process much more enjoyable and efficient. Being part of the project student will learn several aspects of social science research, including literature search, study design, IRB protocol development, data collection methods, quantitative analyses, and writing research report.
Project Title: Captured Slave Ships and the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Dr. Matthew S. Hopper
History Department
Number of Students: 1
Project Description:
This project works to create the first comprehensive database of slave ships captured by the British Royal Navy between 1808 and 1897 while providing opportunities for undergraduate student researchers to improve their research and writing skills and make progress toward a published article in a peer-reviewed journal. After abolishing the slave trade in its empire in 1808, Great Britain created a network of treaties with other European powers authorizing the Royal Navy to search and detain suspected slave ships. Captured ships faced trial at Vice Admiralty Courts or Courts of Mixed Commission in Sierra Leone, Cape Town, Havana, and elsewhere. The correspondence produced by these cases has been preserved in an uncatalogued and underutilized 89-volume record group from the High Court of Admiralty (HCA 35 - Slave Trade Adviser to the Treasury: Report Books) in the National Archives (UK). On research trips over the past several years, I have taken digital photographs of each of these volumes and have worked with a team of volunteers and research assistants to create an index in Microsoft Excel that will serve as the foundation for a fully searchable database of these remarkable and comprehensive resources. This summer, a SURP student researcher will work closely with me to index materials for the captured slave ship database. The student researcher will examine nineteenth-century correspondence to identify key data points, including: the name of the captured ship, the date of capture, the name of the capturing vessel, the name of the court at which the ship was adjudicated, the number of enslaved Africans on board, etc., and add these entries to the expanding database. Since 2019, the Excel spreadsheet has grown to include more than 5,000 entries from more than 60 of the 89 volumes, but much work remains to be done.
Student Qualifications:
A strong candidate for this research would be a student of any CLA major with interest in the transatlantic slave trade and some experience in working with Microsoft Excel. An ideal candidate would have some previous knowledge of the history of the slave trade and would have completed some related coursework (e.g., HIST 308, HIST 303, or HIST 429) and would have some experience reading handwritten historical documents from the nineteenth century. Over the course of eight weeks in the summer, I will meet with the student researcher(s) on a weekly basis via Zoom to check on their progress, review their work and answer questions. The student(s) selected to participate in this project will be formally acknowledged for their contribution to the published database when it is complete. In addition, the student researcher(s) will receive mentoring and editorial assistance on their own written work with the goal of submitting a research article of their own or co-authored with me in a journal such as Slavery & Abolition, African Diaspora, or the Journal of Global Slavery.
Special Collections at Kennedy Library: Black San Luis Obispo during the WWII Era
Dr. Thanayi Jackson
History Department
Number of Students: 1
Project Description:
This is a local history project that began with a collection of primary sources pertaining to African American military units stationed in central California and in San Luis Obispo County during WWII. The ultimate goal of this project is the creation of a library special collections to house the records we recover about WWII Era Black San Luis Obispo. To date, this collection includes military unit records, USO records, private correspondence, and newspaper articles pertaining to the all-Black units.
Desired Student Qualifications:
The work still to be done and able to be accomplished over eight weeks includes an examination of the 1950 census, just released April 1, 2022 and, most importantly, the conducting of oral history interviews with members of San Luis Obispo’s African American community. Students will learn about historical research and the history of the San Luis Obispo Community’s black community. Particularly important to this project is the study of oral history methodologies. Students will learn the requirements for conducting oral histories to be included in a library special collection for further research. We are hoping to conduct at least one interview pre week. Under my guidance, students will be responsible for constructing questions for interviewees, scheduling and conducting interviews, and transcribing and cataloguing interviews for inclusion into the special collection.
Reducing Bullying and Improving the Elementary School Social Climate: A Drama-based K-6 Curriculum Assessment Project
Dr. Carrie Langner
Psychology and Child Development
Number of Students: 1
Project Description:
Bullying is a significant public health problem. In a survey of California K-12 schools, approximately 38% of students reported being bullied. Children who were bullied had an increased risk of internalizing problems (e.g., anxiety disorder), suicide, and poor general health once they reached adulthood (Wolke & Lereya, 2015). An estimated 75% of all bullying incidents are identity-based bias (e.g., racial, sexual orientation, religion, etc.), which exacerbates the negative mental health consequences for victims (Russell, 2002). This project addresses bullying reduction via training in “upstander skills” such that children can identify harassment and intervene on behalf of peers. Peers can establish inclusive social norms and the upstander curriculum promotes inclusive norms via a set of drama-based classroom activities. Role play has the benefit of engaging children in play while they practice effective responses to bullying. The program falls under the umbrella of social emotional learning (SEL), which is critical to children’s mental well-being and benefits academic learning.
A great deal of literature in social psychology has examined the barriers to helping behavior and indicates that lack of certainty about normative behavior will lead to pluralistic ignorance (the inaccurate belief that helping is not needed because others are not helping) and lack of relevant skills will inhibit helping. Therefore, it is important that interventions clarify the expected behavior and provide opportunities for practice. We will assess the program by interviewing children prior to and following their experiences practicing identifying harassment and intervening effectively.
Desired Student Qualifications:
The proposed project utilizes a longitudinal, field experiment methodology to assess the effect of drama-based curriculum on bullying incidence, upstander self-efficacy, and perceptions of school climate. The research design will include both field experiment and longitudinal methodology. We plan to survey elementary school students, teachers, and parents. The multi-year study would be launched with collection of parental consent and then baseline data in August 2022. Time 2 data collected will be collected in December 2022 through early 2023. Research activities will include collecting parental consent forms, administering surveys to K-12 students, scheduling and tracking participation, and data entry. If the research intern continues with the project past the summer, they could be included in data analysis, time 2 data collection, and presentations of initial findings. The ideal candidate will have an interest in psychological research, some coursework completed in psychology and/or child development, and good organizational skills.
A Comparison of Student Attitudes towards Content Warning Usage in WGQS and CJ Courses
Dr. Kylie Parrotta
Social Sciences Department
Number of Students: 2
Project Description:
Past personal and/or family victimization may inspire students’ interest to work in forensics or criminal justice, but continued exposure to others’ trauma may also be retraumatizing and result in secondary traumatic stress (Britton 2003; Chang et al. 2003; Bakker and Heuven 2006). While trauma-informed education practices are increasing in the fields, most forensic science and criminal justice educators fail to equip students with the toolkit necessary to do the emotional labor (Hochschild 1979) and self-care required to stay healthy and excel in the field. This has consequences for future crime scene investigators and law enforcement officers who will encounter emotional trauma during and after encountering a crime scene as well as when providing testimony in a trial. Data for this project come from students’ reflections at the beginning and end of 3 sections of Crime & Violence, 4 sections of Genders & Sexualities, and 2 sections of Criminology & Criminal Justice that were offered online and face to face during the pandemic. Using grounded theory, we will compare students’ attitudes towards receiving content warnings and determine whether offering a notification at the start of class is beneficial for students’ learning.
Student Qualifications:
Student researchers will assist in complete a literature review on trigger warnings and trauma informed pedagogy. Students should be familiar with locating, reading, and annotating peer-reviewed journal articles. Ideally, students will have taken qualitative methods to help complete open and focused coding and a grounded theory analysis.
Effects of Issue Ownership, Perceived Fit, and Authenticity in Nike’s “Dream Crazy” Ad Campaign Staring Colin Kaepernick.
Dr. Yan Shan
Journalism Department
Number of Students: 1
Project Description:
In 2018, Nike’s “Dream Crazy” advertising campaign staring Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who famously took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality, sparked a national debate and controversy about race and sports. Nike’s decision to use Kaepernick’s activism as the face of its ad campaign reflects part of a larger trend in Corporate America – large corporations, once reluctant to take a stance, are more and more likely to interact with consumers on diverse social and political issues. For this study, we attempt to explain two types of perceived fit - perceived fit between a brand’s identity and a promoted social issue, also known as CSA (corporate social advocacy)-brand fit, and perceived fit between a brand’s identity and the identity of a celebrity endorser, also known as celebrity-brand fit, influence corporate reputation.
Desired Student Qualifications:
As a student researcher, you will help to collect social mentions and conversations posted between September 1, 2018, and September 30, 2018, the month Nike launched the ad campaign. You will also help to track and analyze important social media metrics such as frequency, volume, mentions, number of hashtags, and images. Then you will work with me to design and distribute a survey to further understand factors that drive people to react differently towards a company’s CSA communication. I’m looking for ONE committed and responsible student to participate in this research project. Social and digital analytics skill is preferred, but not required. It is ideal if you’re in the public relations concertation or have taken classes in the areas of public relations, advertising, or communications.
The Effects of Mobile User Experiences on Cultural Barriers in a Foreign Fashion Market
Dr. Hocheol Yang
Graphic Communication
Number of Students: 1
Project Description:
The purpose of this proposal is to explore the impact of human-computer interactions in a globalized context. Specifically, the study aims to verify the effects of mobile graphic design interfaces and graphic content on users’ perceptions of cultural differences. The findings will help people who design an interactive communication system and communicate with diverse cultural backgrounds. Research has shown that the effectiveness of customer experience relies more on the emotional and psychological motivations of decision-making rather than the functionality of the actual product (Lemon, 2016). Because fashion retail is closely intertwined with psychological motivations relating to self-esteem, body image, and perceptions of social norms (Denisova, 2021). Cultural differences also contribute to the dichotomy between western and eastern perceptions, for example, in this study’s Korean fashion brands. In more collectivist countries, such as South Korea, high-context culture places greater emphasis on context clues rather than direct communication. Furthermore, comparative studies on cross-cultural communication in user research have revealed that information is received differently between users of low-context and high-context cultures (Lee & Lee, 2007), a factor that may influence how easily Korean fashion brands market themselves to foreign users.
Desired Student Qualifications:
This study will perform a 2 by 2 experiment having 30 participants. Eye-tracking data and survey will measure participants’ attitudes and attention. The selected SURP student will be part of running the experiment and analyzing data. Anticipated research tools are the Tobii Eye-tracking system, SPSS, Excel, Figma, and Abobe creative cloud. The student will have learn-by-doing opportunities to learn and develop these tools, added to learning psychological UX research methods. Participating faculty and the student researcher will make regular meetings to make progress on the project. To foster positive engagement and involvement, faculty and student researchers will always be open to discuss alternate solutions.
Faculty Projects, Summer 2021
TikTok Videos as a Stimulus Set for Generalizable Experiments
CONTACT
Dr. Kelly Bennion
Psychology and Child Development
kbennion@calpoly.edu
STUDENT
Kunhua Cheng
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The emergence of new technologies inevitably raises questions about their effects on the mind, and the arrival of social media is no exception. Indeed, whether social media affects our mood (Kramer et al., 2014) or preys upon our desire for social reinforcement (Lindstrom et al., 2019) has been explored in response to concerns regarding its widespread use, but there are many questions in the cognitive domain yet to be answered. Given the rapid rise in popularity of social media especially during the pandemic, there is great potential to use social media as stimuli to investigate a variety of experimental questions. In doing so, one can use complex, naturalistic stimuli that are generalizable to the real world. Our goal here is to develop a stimulus set and collect data about hundreds of TikTok videos to be used in several experiments in the future, similar to how data are collected about words and images to run well controlled studies.
In compiling the TikTok stimuli, the SURP student will find groups of 10 videos that are interrelated according to some higher-order category (e.g., cooking, break dancing). The student will load these stimuli into Qualtrics Survey software. Participants (recruited from summer classes either as a requirement or extra credit) will view these videos over Zoom, with the SURP student scheduling the times, corresponding with participants, and running the sessions. Participants will rate the relatedness and emotionality of each of these videos, among other characteristics. The SURP student will be responsible for exporting and organizing all data in preparation for analyses, scoring data, and running statistical analyses using SPSS, all of which would be done under Dr. Bennion’s mentorship.
DESIRED STUDENT QUALIFICATIONS
The SURP student should be hard-working, responsible, organized, and social media-savvy. They should be able to search TikTok (and possibly other social media platforms) to find videos appropriate for use in our project and should preferably be good with technology (e.g., to screen-record these videos, organize files), including Microsoft Excel. They also should have a flexible schedule to run participants. PSY majors who have not yet completed PSY 448 or PSY 449 and plan to continue in Dr. Bennion’s lab for their PSY internship requirement are preferred, but an interest in research (ideally in cognitive psychology or cognitive neuroscience) is more important. No prior experience or specific coursework is necessary.
Number of Students: 1
José Vasconcelos, Chicanx Philosophy, and Lugones’ Logic of Curdling
CONTACT
Dr. Francisco Fernflores
Philosophy Department
ffernflo@calpoly.edu
STUDENT
Luca Simplicio
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
This project is a critical re-examination of the middle and late period writings of the Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos and its relationship to contemporary Mexican American Philosophy. Our aim is to answer two key questions to determine whether Vasconcelos' philosophy can contribute to a humanist (feminist-supporting), anti-racist, meliorist, pragmatist philosophy:
- What was the influence of Vasconcelos' philosophy on the Chicano Movement and does it need to be re-framed in light of our critical re-appraisal?
- Is there any room in a humanist (feminist-supporting), anti-racist, meliorist, pragmatism for the “aesthetic monism” of Vasconcelos?
Our preliminary research suggests that there is textual evidence to support the following claims: 1) Vasconcelos' philosophy is inconsistent with the philosophical aims of Chicanx and Latinx authors to frame a philosophical conception of identity that transcends being "míta y míta [half and half]," and 2) The version of mestizaje that is read sometimes into the work of Vasconcelos, and especially La raza cósmica, is at odds with what philosophers such as María Lugones see as the most conceptually important aspect of that notion, viz., what Lugones calls "the logic of curdling'' as opposed to the "logic of purity.''
The project will involve citation tracing, database searches, locating and searching digital archives, bibliography construction and annotation, reading and studying peer-reviewed philosophy articles and books, presenting research findings during biweekly meetings, developing and writing an original research essay to be submitted for a peer-reviewed philosophy journal, and distribution of research findings. The project will produce two original research essays in philosophy, one written by the faculty member, the other by the student researcher under the guided supervision of Prof. F. Fernflores. Both papers will be submitted for peer-review publication to the appropriate philosophy journals at the completion of the project.
DESIRED STUDENT QUALIFICATIONS
- Completion of two upper-division PHIL courses (minimum)
- Junior or senior standing
- Reading Spanish competently is an asset, but not required
- Self-motivated learner with evidence of academic achievement
- Interest in Latin American, Mexican-American, Latinx, Chicanx philosophy
- Willingness and ability to commit approximately 20hrs/week x 8 weeks to the project, including two bi-weekly two hour meetings
Number of Students: 1
Beauty and the Nation: Race, Capitalism, and Modernity in Vietnam, 1920-1945
CONTACT
Dr. Christina Firpo
History Department
cfirpo@calpoly.edu
STUDENT
Tèa Tran
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Fashion, cosmetics, body image, and beauty contests are often dismissed as superficial and unrelated to politics. Yet that is far from the truth. Debates about women’s appearance and the image of the woman often shed light on what a society is and what it wants to be. This project examines beauty and fashion culture in French-colonized Vietnam, 1920-1940, through the lens of national identity and politics. I am looking to work with a student to research and analyze data for my book project, “Beauty and the Nation: Race, Capitalism, and Modernity in Vietnam, 1920-1945.”
In the years after World War I, just as Vietnamese women were emerging as a new, powerful consumer class and potential political bloc, new fashions and beauty products from France began flooding the Vietnamese market. In light of these two developments, women’s attitudes about beauty, and their consumption of fashion- and beauty-related items, became a matter of intense interest among Vietnamese intellectuals, who discussed the issue in the context of broader debates about the nation’s place in the international arena. What surprised me about these discussions was the political and racial meaning the authors attached to even the most nuanced of fashion and beauty trends. I argue that women’s faces and bodies became a vigorously debated site for envisioning what it meant to be Vietnamese in a modern world. The chapters of this book are organized topically to reflect the primary areas of debate about women’s beauty, including an analysis of beauty culture, as well as chapters on fashion, cosmetics, body image, and beauty contests.
I look forward to training student-researchers in historical research, specifically how to search newspapers and use finding aids. I will also take this opportunity to teach the student-researchers how to think in epistemological terms; in other words, how do we know what we know about the past? Student-researchers will work with me and work independently to scour newspapers, read through reportage and fiction literature, and identify and collect necessary secondary sources.
Student-researchers will leave this project as resourceful researchers and skilled writers, equipped with the tools of professionalism. I will give them inside guidance on the conference and publishing processes and help them to navigate the Cal Poly bureaucracy and identify university resources that will be useful throughout their undergraduate career. My hope is to maintain a lasting mentoring relationship with my student-partner.
DESIRED STUDENT QUALIFICATIONS
I am looking for students who have a passion for Asian studies, history, or gender studies. There are no formal classes required for this project, but I hope to find students who are enthusiastic about research and learning. It would be especially helpful to work with students who are organized and have high attention to detail. The students should be proficient readers of Vietnamese. The students do not necessarily have to be native-level proficiency (nor be of Vietnamese heritage), but will have a level of competency to read newspaper articles. I speak and read Vietnamese, so I can help the students with more complicated reading passages.
Number of Students: 1
Captured Slave Ships and the Abolition of the Slave Trade
CONTACT
Dr. Matthew S. Hopper
History Department
mshopper@calpoly.edu
STUDENTS
Nishanth Narayan, Jessica Smith
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
This project works to create the first comprehensive database of slave ships captured by the British Royal Navy between 1808 and 1897 while providing opportunities for undergraduate student researchers to improve their research and writing skills and make progress toward a published article in a peer-reviewed journal.
After abolishing the slave trade in its empire in 1808, Great Britain created a network of treaties with other European powers authorizing the Royal Navy to search and detain suspected slave ships. Captured ships faced trial at Vice Admiralty Courts or Courts of Mixed Commission in Sierra Leone, Cape Town, Havana, and elsewhere. The correspondence produced by these cases has been preserved in an uncatalogued and underutilized 89-volume record group from the High Court of Admiralty (HCA 35 - Slave Trade Adviser to the Treasury: Report Books) in the National Archives (UK). On research trips over the past three years, I have taken digital photographs of each of these volumes and have worked with a team of volunteers and research assistants to create an index in Microsoft Excel that will serve as the foundation for a fully searchable database of these remarkable and comprehensive resources.
This summer, the SURP research assistant(s) will work closely with me to index materials for the captured slave ship database. The student researcher(s) will examine nineteenth-century correspondence to identify key data points, including: the name of the captured ship, the date of capture, the name of the capturing vessel, the name of the court at which the ship was adjudicated, the number of enslaved Africans on board, etc., and add these entries to the expanding database. Since 2019, the Excel spreadsheet has grown to include more than 4,000 entries from 45 of the 89 volumes, but much work remains to be done.
DESIRED STUDENT QUALIFICATIONS
A strong candidate for this research would be a student of any CLA major with interest in the transatlantic slave trade and some experience in working with Microsoft Excel. An ideal candidate would have some previous knowledge of the history of the slave trade and would have completed some related coursework (e.g., HIST 308, HIST 303, or HIST 429) and would have some experience reading handwritten historical documents from the nineteenth century.
Over the course of eight weeks in the summer of 2021, I will meet with the student researcher(s) on a weekly basis via Zoom to check on their progress, review their work and answer questions. The student(s) selected to participate in this project will be formally acknowledged for their contribution to the published database when it is complete. In addition, the student researcher(s) will receive mentoring and editorial assistance on their own written work with the goal of submitting a research article of their own or co-authored with me in a journal such as Slavery & Abolition, African Diaspora, or the Journal of Global Slavery.
Number of Students: 2
Director of Research & Internationalization
Who’s in control? Pandemic related impacts on locus of control
CONTACT
Dr. Stacey Rucas
Social Sciences Department
srucas@calpoly.edu
STUDENT
Sophie Klitgaard
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Life history theory predicts that in stressed environments (e.g., resource poor, physical risk, socially stressed), individuals will develop faster life history strategies affecting behavior, personality, psychology, and physiology, in order to maximize inclusive fitness outcomes in a nonoptimal world, and that this may be reflected by variations in individual personality & behavioral traits such locus of control, which measures the degree to which an individual believes that fate is determined by themselves (internal) versus luck, chance or powerful outside forces (external). Previous research indicates that early Covid-19 quarantine had a strongly positive impact on external LOC scores compared to a previous population of college students. This new research seeks to expand this line of theoretical inquiry by assessing whether vaccines, past Covid-19 infection, and decreased face-to-face socializing is associated with locus of control measures in a way predicted by life history theory (LHT). This line of inquiry is significant since, as others have documented, implications of high externality in locus of control orientations are nearly universally associated with many critically negative outcomes such as depression, helplessness, cynicism, anxiety, hostility, low self-esteem, impaired stress coping mechanisms, lower health treatment uptake, and poor school outcomes. The proposed research will provide one student with the opportunity to engage with the entire, rigorous scientific research enterprise including hypothesis/prediction development derived from theory, ethical research considerations and human subjects applications, survey/research methods development, empirical and qualitative data analysis, visual data design and poster presentations at professional conferences in the fall and spring of the next academic year.
DESIRED STUDENT QUALIFICATIONS
Students interested in scientific based research in evolutionary ecology are encouraged to apply. Students should have successfully completed at least one upper division course in evolutionary theory as it applies to human behavior and one upper division empirical research methods course offered from a CLA department. Additionally, a course in ethnographic/qualitative data methods would be useful, though not required.
Number of Students: 1
Forest Plantation Transitions in the Peruvian Andes
CONTACT
Dr. Benjamin Timms
Social Sciences Department
btimms@calpoly.edu
Dr. Jim Keese
Social Sciences Department
jkeese@calpoly.edu
Dr. Andrew Fricker
Social Sciences Department
africker@calpoly.edu
STUDENTS
Danielle Gerger, Edson Morales
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Deforestation is a widespread problem in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Since the 1960s, and initially promoted by government incentives, Eucalyptus tree plantations have expanded rapidly throughout the region (Luzar 2007). Eucalyptus wood is widely used as a fuel source for cooking and heating in homes (both rural and urban), construction material, and for ceramic tile production. The people prefer it because it grows quickly, self-propagates after cutting, and burns easily. However, exotic Eucalyptus forests have led to environmental changes including water demands, degradation of soil quality, and damage to habitat for native species (Tovar et al. 2013). Within the past decade, there has been a shift toward promoting pine plantations by the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture and supported by environmental NGOs. The impact of this shift is yet to be determined, and this project aims to address the expansion and impact of both Eucalyptus and Pine in the Cuzco Region of Peru from student-involved research on these programs and Geospatial research on quantitative analysis of land-cover changes related to the plantations.
DESIRED STUDENT QUALIFICATIONS
For the summer research program, one student researcher will work with Dr. Timms and Dr. Keese to conduct a thorough review of the literature to examine the political ecology of reforestation using species of both Eucalyptus and Pine in the Andes and other regions of the world. Required skills include attention to detail and ability to research, read, and annotate journal articles and government reports. Preference is for students with intermediate to advance Spanish reading comprehension, but not required. Finally, a passion for working in the Andes of Peru is looked upon favorably.
A second student researcher will work with Dr. Fricker and Dr. Timms to use remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to determine if the area of forest plantations in the research area has increased or decreased over the past several decades. Required skills include coursework in GIS and/or Remote Sensing. Preferred skills include basic proficiency in either Python or JavaScript and a willingness to learn more. Finally, and again, a passion for working in the Andes of Peru is looked upon favorably.
Number of Students: 2
When applying to this project, please be specific as to which position you are applying.
An Experimental Study of Racial Discrimination in Housing Perceptions
CONTACT
Dr. Amber Williams
Psychology and Child Development
awill138@calpoly.edu
STUDENT
Yazmeen Norwood
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Research shows that Black homeowners are routinely discriminated against at every stage of the home buying and selling process in ways that compound over time (Korver-Glenn, 2018). This includes lower appraisals for homes owned by Black people compared to homes owned by White people (Howell & Korver-Glenn, 2018). However, this effect has not been examined experimentally, controlling for confounding factors like neighborhood characteristics, region, and home quality. This study aims to examine how people may assess a home’s worth when the only difference between the homes is that one is owned by a Black family and the other is owned by a White family. This work is important to research given that it examines (1) levels of housing discrimination and prejudice in participants who are likely to either be homeowners or potential homeowners, and (2) the extent to which such prejudice results in the devaluing of a home owned by a Black person, thus contributing to compounding discrimination that affects Black people’s levels of wealth, which has a number of further downstream consequences. Participants will view a home with the only difference being the types of photos in the home. There will be three between-subjects conditions: one home with photos of Black people, another with photos of White people, and another with “neutral” photos (e.g., plants/abstract). Participants will then answer questions about their assessment of the quality and worth of the home. We will collect data online and anticipate that we will primarily be analyzing this data over the summer.
DESIRED STUDENT QUALIFICATIONS
Students who will benefit most include students who are interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in psychology, especially social and/or personality psychology. Preferred, but not required, qualifications include students who have taken PSY 329, PSY 333, and STAT 217. Having taken a course including topics like racial prejudice and discrimination would also be beneficial. Students’ responsibilities will include (1) data management and analysis, (2) conducting a literature search and summarizing articles, (3) helping write the method and results section of the study 1 manuscript, and (4) helping develop and plan the next study. Students will be provided with extensive training in each of these tasks. Students who are motivated and competent will also have the opportunity to co-author the paper, both for presenting the findings in San Francisco for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference and for publication at a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Number of Students: 1
Mapping Part of the Fair Machine Learning Debate: An Application of a New System for Dialectical Argumentation Diagramming
CONTACT
Dr. Ava Wright
Philosophy Department
avwright@calpoly.edu
STUDENT
Benjamin Cornell
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
In this research project we will develop a system for mapping debates and then apply that system to map part of the debate about fairness in algorithmic decision-making systems developed via machine learning. Debate mapping, unlike argument analysis, is primarily concerned with relations between arguments, the dialectic of claims, objections, responses, rebuttals, etc. The main logical relations in a debate map are support and dispute, rather than deductive ones such as validity, and every claim in a debate map is defeasible in the sense that it might be defeated by some further objection. In the first part of the project, we will develop a fairly rigorous system for the theory and practice of debate mapping with an eye toward its eventual computerization. We will test and critique some existing systems. In the second part, we will then apply this system to manually map a fragment of the debate concerning the fairness of algorithmic decision-making systems developed via machine learning. These include systems such as automated resume screeners, loan application reviewers, recidivism risk predictors, etc. Many AI ethicists and others worry that these systems may make decisions that are unfair because they are created by training on historical data that may be systematically biased against traditionally disadvantaged groups. The relevant debate about fairness in philosophy and in the law is extensive, but much of it remains disconnected from the fair machine learning debate. I am particularly interested in connecting some past debates in philosophy or the law with current debates about fair machine learning, but the exact scope (and even topic) of our debate map is still to be worked out.
DESIRED STUDENT QUALIFICATIONS
Philosophy or political science students with an interest in law and/or the ethics of artificial intelligence would be ideal candidates. A background in logic, or computer science or some coding experience or interest would be helpful for the project, but is not necessary.
Number of Students: 1