nnickels / macs30200proj Goto Github PK

This was fascinating to review. Overall, I think you did a nice job presenting your findings clearly through your tables and graphs; and while you used a limited number of tables and graphs, I think it was sufficient for the purposes of getting your point across to the viewer. As someone who has no background knowledge in the subject area, this was accessible and clear in helping me understand - your research question, your methods, and your findings. Yay for accessibility. Also, I think you appropriately bolded key terms to help that stand out for the reader.

In terms of some areas of growth, the Introduction was a bit cluttered for my eyes to read. I think including the “Concerns of lab studies” and “Amazon Mturk” sections is nice to have, but maybe not necessary to include? It may be something that is better addressed directly in the paper or when you are presenting this face-to-face at a conference (or at the very least, it could be reduced to a single bullet point each). I think that would help clear up the Introduction.

I was personally surprised by your results (but I am also speaking from a place of relative ignorance). Great job!

You did a really impressive job! The topic of your research is interesting. Your poster is very well organized and follows logic flow, since you divided your poster into several parts and then divide each part into smaller sections, and such design shows that you have a very clear idea about the logic flow and evolvement mechanism about your research. In the introduction part, you explained what is “trait anxiety” so that a person who does not know much about psychology (like me) can understand what is going on in your research. However, if you can add an example of “trait anxiety”, it will be even more easily comprehended, because for me it took some time to grasp accurately a concept in an area that I’m not familiar with.
Additionally, your choice of color is also pretty good. You highlighted the research questions part but with maroon color, which not only exhibit the importance of research questions but also compatible with the template theme.
Your tables and graphs are professional and beautiful, and they properly explained the results of your research.
There is one thing you have probably missed – your contact information. If you can add you email address, telephone number, Github repository page, etc., it would be a more complete research poster.

This is a really interesting topic and it’s good to know what trait anxiety is. I think using Amazon Mturk may be a challenging and time-consuming part of this study. I am kind of surprised to see that Uchicago & MTurk participants do not differ in TAI Score. Speaking of the design and layout, I think the poster is clear, logical, and organized. You have all the essential components in your poster. It’s reasonable to address the concerns of lab studies and your alternative method of using Amazon Mturk in the introduction section. The size of the figures is good and the figures are properly labelled. I have no trouble understanding the figures.

Personally, I would recommend including some test statistics of multiple linear regression in the result section to show that you have a significant regression equation. Also, I am thinking that if you plan to turn this course project into a long-term project, would it be reasonable to survey participants consecutively within a certain time period to have a more accurate measurement of trait anxiety? (since from my understanding, trait anxiety may also be time-dependent)

Overall, I think you have done a great job! Good luck!

• Important problem that most people do not test for due to time/money/resources
• Are you comparing within-subjects (test subject online, and again in the lab) or between-subjects?
• You cannot control when subjects complete their online survey - might there be systematic biases of certain kinds of students completing the survey at certain times of day? If so, that would bleed into your analysis. This is a concern Laurence mentioned in class and I agree that it could prove to be problematic in your interpretation of your results. Do you have a strategy for dealing with this problem?

I am glad your project can be useful for your larger PhD thesis research and helps you validate your measure!

The poster layout is nice and clear, with a good, logical flow from upper left to bottom right for each successive part of the research project. The layout is aesthetically pleasing and there does not seem to be an excessive amount of text; graph vs text balance is good. All of the essential components of a research poster are present, including the research questions. You also spelled out your motivation and results clearly during the presentation.

Since setting is one of the key variables of interest, it could be interesting to include a short line, describing how the variable is computed from the survey response; if it is a continuous variable, what ranges it can take on, etc.

It is not on the poster, probably due to lack of space, but I imagine checks for the use of the linear regression would be important, like constant variance of residuals and check for the omitted variable bias, etc.

The biggest surprise to me was almost identical distribution of anxiety scores between MTurkers and UChicago people, because, as you mentioned, conventional (stereotype) wisdom tells us otherwise. I know the samples are not that large, but I wonder what would happen if we could break down the UofC sample into student vs everyone else groups. I wonder if UofC undergraduate students vs graduate students vs faculty display different distributions in comparison with MTurkers and to each other. But maybe you already looked at it in your research.

Hi Nora,
Here is the peer-review for your poster.

Your poster is great! It is very organized and clean which makes it easy to read. The color scheme works really well and is pleasing to the eye. I like how you bold key parts of the text to catch the reader's attention. The change of text color in the introduction is also great and helps the reader digest important details about your hypothesis. I do think that the introduction is a bit too heavy on text, and a nice infographic could summarize a lot of the dull information there, but this is not a great impediment to the overall aesthetic of the poster. Your graphs are nicely sized, but I think that the actual figure lines could be made more prominent to make them easier to see. I would also place the equation of the model - a key component of your project - closer to the upper areas of the poster os it does not get overlooked. Other than that, I think readers would want to see the actual regression results (beta-values, adjusted R square) so I would find somewhere to include them. For instance, I think your Conclusion is a bit too wordy and a lot of that can go in the oral presentation. The extra space you create could be used to report a crucial result of your analysis. But then again, your conclusion is very thorough and considered which is refreshing to see in the space-constraints of a poster!