Editor's Note: This is the second installment of a series that highlights various University of Nebraska-Lincoln undergraduate research projects, funded through the Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experiences program.
There's a lot more to research than scientists curing cancer.
Research can range from undergraduates studying the best mode by which third graders learn to students exploring how French women's expanding waistlines have impacted the fashion industry.
Advertising
The United States isn't the only country feeling the squeeze of obesity.
French women, who typically maintain a more healthy weight than Americans, are seeing their waistlines expand.
Amy Struthers, an assistant professor of advertising, and Lisa Herman, a senior textiles, clothing and design major, are sorting through a decade's worth of French fashion magazines to see if the change in body type is reflected in France's fashion industry, as it has been in the United States through movements such as Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty.
Herman found magazines in the archives of the Alliance Française de Chicago, a French cultural and learning center, and the National Library of France in Paris as material for the duo to study.
Struthers and Herman hope to have their analysis complete by the end of the fall semester to present at the undergraduate research fair and to submit to academic journals and conferences.
Department of teaching, learning and teacher education
Kathy Phillips, an assistant professor of practice, believes the process of learning is more beneficial than the regurgitation of facts, and she's working to prove it.
Phillips, Mary-Kate Peters, a junior elementary special education major, and Brenna Poppe, a junior inclusive childhood education major, are using six sections of Lincoln third graders to see if a teacher's emphasis on text format plays a role in the students' comprehension.
Non-fiction literature for children is written in five distinct formats. For the experiment's control group, the classes are to read a non-fiction story, and the teacher does not discuss the text's format.
However, in the experimental group, the instructor emphasizes the piece's format and content.
The third-graders are asked to draw and write about the text's subject, which was the rainforest in one trial, before and after listening to the reading.
By analyzing the student's writing structures and illustrations, the researchers hope to find a connection between the emphasis of the text format and the students' knowledge of the literature's subject.
Department of political science
Amanda Crook, a junior political science major, is busy sifting through the texts of major presidential speeches to see if how the president addresses a policy directly relates to its success.
In a process called "coding," Crook analyzes each paragraph, asking questions such as, "Was there an emotional appeal?"; "Was there evocative language or a call to action?"; "What issues were discussed?"; and "Did he talk about bipartisanship?"
After Crook codes the address, she "adds up" her answers and looks for a relationship between the speech and the success of the issues the president touched upon.
For example, President Bush, in his recent speech about the $700 billion bailout deal, did not talk about how it would affect the average American, and Congress did not pass the proposal, said Mike Wagner, an assistant professor of political science and Crook's sponsor.
Crook is expected to have her project's draft completed at the end of the fall semester.
teresalostroh@dailynebraskan.com
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