Faculty of Social Science & Humanities Project Summaries
Supervisors
Lindsay Malloy | Isabel Pedersen
Supervisor name: Lindsay Malloy
Project title: Examining Dishonesty in Sibling Relationships
Summary of research project: Little is known about honesty and dishonesty in the context of sibling relationships, yet the interpersonal dynamics of sibling relationships make them a particularly interesting context for studying these aspects of social and moral development. The primary objectives of the proposed studies are to (1) identify the types and frequency of dishonesty (secret-keeping and lie-telling) in the context of sibling relationships, and (2) experimentally test a younger sibling’s willingness to keep a secret or lie to conceal an older sibling’s wrongdoing and the factors that influence it (e.g., relationship quality).
Student responsibilities/tasks:
- The student will ideally involved in recruiting and compensating participants; scheduling and testing participants; transcribing videos, and coding and entering data.
Student qualifications required:
- Minimum 3.7 GPA
- Ideally has completed Research Methods course
- Experience working with children
Expected training/skills to be received by the Student:
- The proposed program is ideal for training students interested in developing a theoretical knowledge base in child development, including social, moral, and legal issues.
- Students will gain experience with both survey and experimental research methodologies
- Students will gain experience with participant recruitment and data collection
- Students will gain experience with data transcription, coding and entry
Length of award: 16 Weeks
Location of award: Hybrid
Available Award: SSHRC USRA (exclusively for Black students) or Ontario Tech STAR Award
Supervisor name: Isabel Pedersen
Project title: Cultural Analytics and Digital Archiving Project
Summary of research project: Fabric of Digital Life - a research database and repository for cultural analytics project. Fabric of Digital Life is a cultural analytics database that tracks the emergence of embodied computing platforms. It houses a variety of media types such as promotional videos, patents, news articles, art projects, and scholarly works, which are catalogued using a unique metadata scheme that distinguishes technologies from their marketing narratives and corporate intentions. Student researchers are trained and involved in archiving materials for several ongoing research collections, including, one involving AI conversational assistants and wearable technologies.
Student responsibilities/tasks:
- Searching for artifacts on the Internet. Artifacts include text, video and images relating to emergent technologies.
- Using a customized metadata system to archive artifacts in a content management system used for cultural heritage preservation and public access.
- Researching capabilities of technologies for ongoing collections, and using them.
- Providing text descriptions.
- Communicating often with research team members.
Student qualifications required:
- Three years completed of an undergraduate degree.
- Knowledge of emergent digital technologies, devices, databases, and/or software
- Course experience in using computer hardware devices or other hardware technologies
- Excellent communication and research skills
Expected training/skills to be received by the Student:
- Learn to use a customized metadata system to archive artifacts in a content management system, used for cultural heritage preservation and access.
- Learn to apply research on technologies for ongoing social science cultural analytics collections (e.g. marketing videos for AI assistants and smartglasses, videos of research device prototypes).
- Learn to write textual descriptions for digital cultural artifacts.
- Learn about digital research collections for digital cultural artifacts.
Length of award: 14 Weeks
Location of award: Hybrid
Available Award: SSHRC USRA (exclusively for Black students) or Ontario Tech STAR Award
