Project Background
Student Role
The project will offer an exciting, interdisciplinary collaboration between the student, Dr. Rachel Ernst (tenure-track librarian at the U of Utah) and myself (Dr. Sarah Small, assistant professor of economics). Students considering a future in library science, economics, public policy, data science, or other social sciences will likely benefit from participating the project. The student will begin by surveying relevant scholarly literature and drafting a literature review which frames and motivates the research question. The student will then assist Dr. Sarah Small in cleaning the quantitative data. This is especially important in the Seattle Public Library data, where current variables capturing literary categories are too granular and therefore unwieldy for our analysis. Students with prior experience in R or Python may build on their existing skills by employing sentiment analysis machine learning techniques to more swiftly process the data.
The student will then have the opportunity to assist Dr. Small in the econometric estimations and will be trained on appropriate techniques and conventions in the field. Time permitting, the student may then assist in writing and formatting the final research product, which we imagine will be a peer-reviewed journal article in which all three contributors (including the student) are coauthors. This will include writing a correct summary of the results and drafting tables and figures which concisely convey the main findings of the study.
Student Learning Outcomes and Benefits
The student will develop several skills that will prepare them for work in graduate programs, especially those in library science or economics, or for roles in data science or policy research. Namely, in terms of data analysis, the student will develop skills in data cleaning, machine learning, econometric estimation techniques, and use of statistical software such as Stata and R. These are especially practical skills in data science and economics which are often hard to undertake in a conventional classroom experience. Further, the student's critical writing and research skills will be sharpened. In drafting the literature review, the student will learn how to comb through scholarly outlets and databases to find appropriate and related literature. They will also be coached on writing in a way which appropriately and clearly contextualizes the study's contribution. The project, as a whole, will also help the student reflect on whether they enjoy doing research and wish to pursue such endeavors in their future career.
Sarah Small
Practically, in addition to regular email communication, we imagine having (at least) weekly in-person or Zoom check-ins with the student researcher. This will provide an opportunity for feedback and adjustments, fostering a sense of accountability and connectedness. We will celebrate small milestones-large research projects can be daunting without recognizing small milestones. The student researcher and Dr. Small & Dr. Ernst will work together on setting clear goals and timelines for each phase of the project and we are very open to readjusting the researcher's specific tasks within the project based on their interests and abilities. The student researcher should be self-motivated as a great deal of their time will be unsupervised. In an effort encourage mentees' independence and confidence, we often provide resources for students to solve a particular problem, but then give them the opportunity to explore the resource on their own before pointing them to a straightforward solution or result. We find that this approach also allows for us to see the problem from different angles, which often brings more research questions to light. Still, students should not expect to work alone: we will offer hands-on training and problem solving, which may look like sitting in my office looking at code together or reading through tricky methodology sections of a research paper together. Our mentorship style is collaborative: if the student has an idea, we sincerely want to hear it! Ultimately, we hope these approaches foster applied skill development, collaboration, critical reflection, accountability, and growth for both the student and for us.