New Year, New Me

Happy 2018!

Restoring this blog is the ultimate achievement of my new year so far. I am looking forward to sharing the progress I've made since my last post--and there is quite a bit to fill you in on.

First of all, my literature review is finally, finally done. That particular creation felt like it took months to polish off--oh wait, it did. Not to mention that nothing is truly done until the official College Board upload in April, meaning that I still have quite a few revisions ahead of me. What's more is that, although I felt pretty confident when I first completed the assignment, I now realize (after having worked on my methods section for the past few weeks--but we'll get there) that the revisions will be h e f t y. But, hey, let's enjoy the accomplishment.

Oh, how I've missed my JLD gifs.

After turning in my lit review, it was time for the best part of AP Capstone: the visual presentation. I'll admit, AP Seminar presentations were not necessarily my strong suit. I was weak, and I did not yet understand the potential of borders or arrows. I'm stronger now. Also, my slide backgrounds aligned with pastel colors of the rainbow, which, in my opinion, was VERY on brand of me. Anyway, I nailed the presentation--in my humble opinion. Writing and rewriting the script did what it's always done best: helped me cut down on words and find a more purposeful way of organizing my argument. With those things considered, I would classify the literature review portion of my year (August through November) a definite win overall.

Following the literature review presentation was when the fun really, truly began. And I don't say that sarcastically! The methods section is where all that work--those 2+ months of intensely reviewing the literature--begins to pay off. From researching the implementation of vignettes in social research to designing my survey questions, I started to see the thrill of conducting primary research. Truly, it is a creative process--a productive, intellectual one, but a creative process nonetheless.

As for the questions I wrote, I'm pretty proud. In fact, that experience was uniquely creative, as vignettes are small bits of fiction that must both accurately represent the realities lived by participants and appropriately connect to the research question (according to two super impressive researchers named Huby and Hughes, who used their experience to write about the best ways to implement vignettes in social research). In fact, while I used my own experiences and those of my peers to write vignettes that seemed realistic and possible within a school context, I had to pursue further research--a 2016 study conducted by Kevin Nadal and colleagues--about microaggressions faced by LGBTQ people.

For those who don't know, microaggressions are the more subtle forms of discrimination that someone might experience. There are various examples that change based on the group in question, but for this particular study, one example identified was the conflation of AIDS with sexual orientation, an especially prevalent issue for gay men. To put it in clearer terms: a blatant and aggressively homophobic statement would be to say that a gay man is dirty, sinful, unclean, or wrong for being gay. A microaggression would be closer to someone asking--perhaps out of genuine confusion or misunderstanding--whether a man has AIDS when they find out that he is gay.

Hopefully, through that example, you can understand the implications of asking about blatant and aggressive discrimination against LGBTQ people. Imagine reading a survey question that reads: "Do you think that gay men are dirty, sinful, unclean, or wrong?" Not only would the results likely be polarized between genuine allies/anyone seeking woke points and outright bigots, but it wouldn't tell me anything meaningful about misunderstandings of the LGBTQ community. Rather, it would only reveal whether some outright bigots are teachers.

So, the microaggressions identified in Nadal et. al were ultimately the foundation for the vignettes that I included in my survey. Finally, I included some demographic questions (including age, grades taught, subjects taught, and affiliations with the LGBTQ community) in order to account for potential confounding variables or trends in the results. And, with all that put together in some neat little boxes, the IRB approved my research. Score!

"Oh yeah!"

That's pretty much where we are right now. After returning from break, I've been working on my methods section--essentially, that means figuring out how to synthesize my proposal into fewer words while making it sound a lot more formal. It's going okay so far. For now, I want to focus on finishing up that assignment so that I can review my peers' work (and receive their feedback). Once I get to a good place with my methods section, it'll be all about collecting results from the survey being sent (hopefully very soon) to teachers at my school and others around AZ. Maybe at that point I can start taking a crack at those lit review revisions.

That's all for now, but I'm excited to continue taking steps towards a completed AP Research project. As the culmination of my experiences as a student at my school for the past eight years, I hope that it will exceed my expectations (and everyone else's).

Until next week,
Vanessa

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