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After many hours of finding sources, writing, and conduction data collection, my year long research journey has come to an end. It took a lot of hard work, but I have officially completed my AP Research project. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take this class and complete research on a topic that I care about.
Content:
For anyone unfamiliar with my project, my research question was, “Which demographic’s narratives are most prevalent in recent films about World War II from the major countries involved?” To answer this question, I quantified the presence of characters in twelve World War II movies that fit into specific demographic categories. Here is a very brief overview of my data. In my official data analysis, I did look at the four main categories that I included in my research (gender, race, occupation, and nationality). This data is available on my previous blog post or in the presentation and paper below. Here, I will just include the analysis of all of the data overall.
The two most occurring demographics were "male" and "white" with 19.7% and 19.6% of characters fitting into these categories. There were distinct differences between the prevalence of categories across all 12 movies. My data indicated that there are discrepancies between the representation of demographics and that there are groups of people that are not portrayed as often in World War II movies.
There were definite discrepancies between the different demographics that occurred in the movies. While my research examine the more broad trends, it did successfully establish a baseline of research that myself or others can build off of in the future. I would love to apply the research methods to other demographics or movies. It would be very interesting to see how representation changes based on the genre, time period, and subject of a movie.
Product:
Below are the paper that I submitted to the college board and presentation for my oral defense. I spent a lot of time on both products in order to make them as high quality as possible. As I compiled and condensed all of the information I used in my research, I learned a lot about communication. I had to present my research in terms that everyone could understand. I also had to make sure that I was communicating my research in a way that makes sense and provides the best explanation of what I have been doing all year. I can use these skills in the future as I conduct more research and continue to produce papers and presentations in college.
Process:
Doing this project made me realize how much I love doing research, especially on topics that I care about. I realized that while it may seem small, I can make a difference in the world. I produced research that provided insight in how people's stories are told and has the potential to create change in the movie making industry to increase inclusion and representation. I also learned that I am capable as a student and a researcher. I was able to take on a big task, completing much of it on my own, and I was successful. This gave me confidence that I will keep with me for the foreseeable future. I learned so many skills that can help me both now and in the future. I can use all that I learned about time management, flexibility, and self-reliance as I move into the next steps of my life.
I had the opportunity to present my project at a research symposium at school. I was very excited to share what I did and found in my research with a wider audience.
Future:
I hope to be able to continue researching in college. I would love to build upon the research I did this year, either for school or just for fun, and apply my methodology to other variables. Even if I don't continue my exact research project, I plan to conduct further research on similar topics, especially as my academic career advances.
Next year, I will be attending Brigham Young University majoring in International Relations. I also hope to study abroad for at least a semester. I am sad to leave high school, but I'm very excited to take this next step in my life and I can't wait to see what's next.
Acknowledgements:
I would just like to thank everyone who has helped me along this journey. Thank you to my teachers: Ms. Dobos, Mr. Winkleman, Ms. Uchyn, Ms. Lamb, and Ms. Savas for helping me form my topic, develop my methodology and data collection, and find movies.
Another big thank you to my parents for buying and renting movies for me and supporting me throughout the year!
And finally, thanks to all of you who have followed me on this journey! I hope that you've been able to learn something new or at least find something interesting in my research. I hope that it changes the way you think about research in general, but also how people are represented in the movies and TV shows we all watch everyday.
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