Embedded Files
Welcome Back!
Welcome Back!
As I begin to wrap up my research, I am building up to "argue my case" (present my oral defense and write my paper). I am beyond excited to share with you my data analysis and take you along with me as a prepare to present my findings.
Data Analysis
Data Analysis
I have finally concluded my data analysis and am so excited to share my results.
Theamtic Change in Supreme Court Ideology Analysis
The first thing I analyzed is if there is a thematic change in Supreme Court ideology from Plessy to the Civil Rights Cases. I believed that analyzing this change over time would make my research more credible; a piece of feedback I received when I was developing my project is that in theory, external factors do not influence the Supreme Court because it is rooted in jurisprudence (that is, making decisions based upon judicial precedence). To combat this, I decided to see if there was a change in thematic ideas over time to illustrate that the Court is not fully rooted in jurisprudence in practice because even though their ideas changed the cases they were basing their rulings in did not. I ran a chi-square goodness of fit test in order to analyze the statistical significance of my data.
Observed Data (Proportions)
Expected Data (Proportions)
The numbers above are adding up the values from doing observed-expected/expected. I rejected or failed to reject based upon if the value was above the chi-square value.
Analysis: There was a statistical difference in the proportions of codes for the "for social equality" category, which means that there was a change over time in Supreme Court ideology in this regard. However, there was not a statistically significant difference in the other categories which suggests the presence of those themes is not statistically different.
Thematic Similarities between Civil Rights Supreme Court Cases, Soviet Propaganda, and Communist Works
After, I analyzed the thematic similarities across the Civil Rights Supreme Court Cases, Soviet Propaganda, and Communist Works. Again, this research in no way showed causation, but it has the ability to show similar ideas across texts that are traditionally thought to be distinctly different. I ran a chi-square test of homogeneity to analyze the statistical significance of my data.
Analysis: There was not a statistical difference in the proportions of codes for all of the categories except "for economic equality." This means that the prevalence of themes was similar. This means that there is a relationship between communism, Cold War propaganda, and Civil Rights Supreme Court Majority Opinions within most thematic catagories.
Defense
Defense
Once I finished my data analysis, it was time to create my oral defense presentation and construct my paper. I had a difficult time fitting all of my information into a short window of time, but after weeks of work, I believe I constructed a presentation that encapsulates my project well. I am beyond excited to share my results with a wider audience and to contribute to the academic conversation.
Reflection
Reflection
Now that I have completed my research, I have done a lot of reflecting on the process. When I look back, I am proud of how far I came since the summer when I had no idea what to research/how I would be able to successfully conduct an authentic research project. Even though my project ended differently than what I had envisioned, I am proud of the journey. My biggest takeaway was how to handle uncertainty within research. I am someone who likes to have clear instructions and a clear path in all aspects of my life. I had to learn that this is not feasible in a research process; research is uncertain by nature. Throughout this process, I learned to embrace uncertainty rather than shun from it, and I think that helped me immensely in the process. For example, for a long time, I wasn't able to find propaganda to analyze. I took this uncertainty in stride, and I continued to look and persevere through this challenge. From this challenge, I also added the communist analysis element to my research which ultimately added another layer of complexity. I ultimately learned that by leaning into discomfort better results can be generated.
Next Steps
Next Steps
After my oral defense, my final steps are to complete my paper and later present my findings at my school's research symposium.
Page updated
Report abuse