RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM 299Y PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS SUMMER

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1 Project Code: CSC 1S Professor Ronald M. Baecker & Assistant Lab Director Carrie Demmans Epp Computer Science TITLE OF RESEARCH PROJECT: Exploring Language Use in Computer Science Discussion Forums NUMBER OF STUDENT PLACES AVAILABLE: 5 Archival data from a discussion forum will be analyzed. This data was collected from an online learning environment that was used within an undergraduate computer science program over the course of 5 years. A portion of the data from the discussion forum will be analyzed. This project aims to determine The relationship between online forum usage patterns and student knowledge of domain specific terms (words) how student communication patterns change as they progress through their degree how student communication patterns change based on community membership (the course that each student is in and the people that they interact with) This project uses the following methods Categorizing discussion forum posts using o thematic analysis o open coding Statistical analysis o Descriptive statistics o Model building o Machine learning The above methods are grounded in educational technology research, which is inherently interdisciplinary. Different techniques are being borrowed from applied linguistics, learning analytics, natural language processing, and data mining. They are being applied to the area of computer science education. Students will Clean data: this involves reading postings, identifying domain specific terminology, and ensuring that all potentially identifying information is anonymized

2 Analyze Data (using Dedoose) o Assign descriptive tags to excerpts from discussion board postings o work with the project leader (C. Demmans Epp) to synthesize the tag assignment and identify larger themes within the data Prepare a report summarizing their findings Regularly report on their activities Expected Student Qualifications: * Ability to work cooperatively with others Good written and oral communication skills Good organizational skills * Students from non computer science backgrounds are welcome to apply. Programming skills are not required. Journal of Activities 10% 1 August 2015 Use of project management tools 5% Over the course of the summer ** Data Cleaning 25% 1 June 2015 ** Data Analysis 30% 10 July 2015 ** Draft Report 10% 1 August 2015 Report Summarizing Findings 20% 15 August 2015 ** These will be marked one at a time as they are completed. The grade for individual tasks will then be averaged. The date specified is for the last day on which work products for that type of task can be submitted.

3 Project Code: CSC 2S Steve Engels, Senior Lecturer Computer Science TITLE OF RESEARCH PROJECT: Educational Video Game Design NUMBER OF STUDENT PLACES AVAILABLE: 16 This project is aimed at developing video games for education, and testing these games to determine what features make educational games effective. This is an important subject, because most research on games and education focuses on the use of games over other media. But there is little research within educational game design, on what features helps student engage more with the experience, and what makes the material easier to learn. As part of this project, students will have the opportunity to work with both computer scientists, educators and cognitive scientists to get feedback on their designs. Students in this course will make video games that test the effects of certain game features on education. They will conduct research on educational technology, and will make two games that are identical except for the feature being tested. Then the students will test these games on students to determine which features improve the educational gaming experience. Participation component: 10% Week of Milestone(s) Weight May 11 Assignment 1 5% May 18 Assignment 2 5% May 25 Milestone 1: Game Pitch 10% June 8 Milestone 2: Game Alpha 10% June 22 Milestone 3: Initial Testing 10% June 29 Midterm Break July 13 Milestone 4: Game Beta 15% July 27 Milestone 5: Final Testing 15% Aug 10 Milestone 6: Demo & Report 20%

4 Project Code: PSY 3S Dr. Daphna Buchsbaum Psychology TITLE OF RESEARCH PROJECT: The Development of Causal Learning in a Social Context NUMBER OF STUDENT PLACES AVAILABLE: 1 Children live in a causally complex world, where they must learn not only to predict the consequences of events ( the wind blowing could make that branch fall on me ), but also to act causally on the world themselves ( pressing the remote control button turns on the TV ). How do children learn these kinds of causal relationships, especially when the world presents them with sparse, ambiguous data or with multiple, conflicting sources of evidence? This ongoing research project aims to answer these questions using experiments with both children and adults This project is for dedicated and motivated students interested in gaining research skills and experience to help prepare both for future research projects (e.g., thesis) and for graduate school. Students will work closely with the faculty supervisor and lab manager, as well as other lab members and will be involved in all aspects of the research process. Students will be expected to attend and participate in regular (weekly or bi weekly) lab meetings and to spend approximately 20 hours a week working in the lab (or on lab related tasks). Students will participate in the research project in some of the following ways: 1) Participating in lab meetings, including discussion of current research issues and projects in the lab, discussion of the theoretical motivations of the studies students are working on, and discussion of the findings of other empirical papers 2) Assisting with experimental data collection, working with infants and young children as well as adults 3) Assisting with a variety of necessary research tasks in the lab such as stimuli creation (including both physical toys and story books and computer programs and displays), data entry and coding, recruiting and scheduling participants 4) Assisting with data analysis and preparing data for publication 5) Students with a programming background may be given the option of assisting with the development of computational models of cognition and of computer based experiments

5 Desirable Skills and Experience Students should be enthusiastic and self motivated, able to pay attention to fine details, and comfortable acting silly in front of both children and adults. In order to accommodate the schedules of parents and children, students will need to have blocks of 3 4 hours at a time regularly available for research during day time hours (weekday or weekend). Experience working with children either formally or informally is highly desirable. Programming experience, although not necessary, is an advantage for this project. Mechanical or electrical engineering skills are not necessary, but would be a plus (we're always building new toys for our experiments) Evaluation of participation in lab work over term. This includes attendance and contribution to lab meetings, and conducting research in an efficient, effective, and professional manner including consistent attendance and timely completion for in lab work. June 20th, 2015 and August 15th, % of total mark. Lab Journal. Students are expected to keep a research journal/work log to record lab activities every week including lab hours, tasks and progress, research ideas, and comments on discussions and assigned articles. Journal and interim research report (contained within journal) due June 20 th and whole journal submitted again on August 15 th for grading: 20% of total mark. Final Project Report. Students will prepare a scientific poster for presentation at the annual Faculty of Arts and Science 299 Research Forum OR write a final paper (approximately 6 8 pages) in the form of a scientific article: 20% of total mark. Lab meeting presentations. Students are expected to give a short (approximately 15 minute) presentation to the lab each term. 20% of total mark.

6 Project Code: PSY 4S Dr. Daphna Buchsbaum Psychology TITLE OF RESEARCH PROJECT: Computational Models of Cognitive Development NUMBER OF STUDENT PLACES AVAILABLE: 1 In recent years, probabilistic computational models using Bayesian analysis have been successfully applied to a wide range of inference and reasoning problems faced by young children, including word and category learning, cause and effect learning, trust in social informants, and making mentalistic inferences about other s goals, intentions and beliefs. Probabilistic computational models using Bayesian inference are a natural way to approach understanding how prior biases and different sources of evidence contribute to children s behavior. The general methodology of this approach is to look at cognition in terms of abstract computational problems, identify the optimal solution to those problems, and compare that solution to human behavior. In particular, the first step involves considering the assumptions and capacities of learners. Bayesian models work by using Bayes rule as a normative model of how an idealized learner with some pre existing expectations or biases about how the world works, can update their beliefs, in light of new data. This project is for dedicated and motivated students interested in gaining research skills and experience to help prepare both for future research projects (e.g., thesis) and for graduate school. Students will work closely with the faculty supervisor and lab manager, as well as other lab members and will be involved in all aspects of the research process. Students will be expected to attend and participate in regular (weekly or bi weekly) lab meetings and to spend approximately 20 hours a week working in the lab (or on lab related tasks). 1) Participating in lab meetings, including discussion of current research issues and projects in the lab, discussion of the theoretical motivations of the models and empirical studies students are working on, and discussion of the findings of other empirical and theoretical papers 2) Assisting with a variety of necessary research tasks in the lab, particularly developing computer based experiments using Amazon Mechanical Turk and survey software such as Qualtrics or PsyTurk. This may also involve creating custom web experiments using Javascript and HTML, and interacting with SQL databases to retrieve and store data

7 3) Assisting with the development of computational models of cognition. This will include programming (generally in MATLAB, R or Python). Desirable Skills and Experience Students should be enthusiastic and self motivated, interested in cognition and cognitive development, and able to pay attention to fine details. Students must have programming experience completion of CS 108 (or equivalent experience) is required, and completion of CS 148 (or equivalent experience) is highly desirable. Experience with web development, SQL, and/or probability and statistics would be a plus but are not necessary. Evaluation of participation in lab work over term. This includes attendance and contribution to lab meetings, and conducting research in an efficient, effective, and professional manner including consistent attendance and timely completion of programming and experiment design when required. June 20th, 2015 and August 15th, % of total mark. Lab Journal. Students are expected to keep a research journal/work log to record lab activities every week including lab hours, tasks and progress, research ideas, and comments on discussions and assigned articles. In particular, this also includes documentation of experiment and model development, and clearly commented and well documented code. Journal and interim research report (contained within journal) due, June 20 th and whole journal submitted again on August 15 th for grading: 20% of total mark. Final Project Report. Students will prepare a scientific poster for presentation at the annual Faculty of Arts and Science 299 Research Forum OR write a final paper (approximately 6 8 pages) in the form of a scientific article: 20% of total mark. Lab meeting presentations. Students are expected to give a short (approximately 15 minute) presentation to the lab each term. 20% of total mark.

8 Project Code: PSY 5S Dr. Daphna Buchsbaum Psychology TITLE OF RESEARCH PROJECT: How Do Humans and Animals (Pet Dogs) Combine their Physical Knowledge with Social Cues To Solve Problems? NUMBER OF STUDENT PLACES AVAILABLE: 1 Humans and other animals are faced with the challenge of solving physical problems in their environment every day. Whether planning the best way to pack a moving van, or deciding which of two precarious branches to climb along to reach a tasty fruit, we are confronted with information from multiple sources that needs to be weighted and integrated when deciding what action to take to solve that problem. Two key sources of information that can be of use to us are (1) prior physical knowledge such as knowing that objects fall downwards when dropped; and (2) social cues information that is communicated to us by someone else, for example by pointing. What happens when input from these two sources provides conflicting evidence? How do humans and animals integrate this ambiguous information to make a decision? In this project we will particularly be looking at social and physical reasoning in pet dogs. This project is for dedicated and motivated students interested in gaining research skills and experience to help prepare both for future research projects (e.g., thesis) and for graduate school. Students will work closely with the faculty supervisor and lab manager, as well as other lab members and will be involved in all aspects of the research process. Students will be expected to attend and participate in regular (weekly or bi weekly) lab meetings and to spend approximately 20 hours a week working in the lab (or on lab related tasks). Students will participate in the research project in some of the following ways: 1) Participating in lab meetings, including discussion of current research issues and projects in the lab, discussion of the theoretical motivations of the studies students are working on, and discussion of the findings of other empirical papers 2) Assisting with experimental data collection, working with pet dogs 3) Assisting with a variety of necessary research tasks in the lab such as coding video data, stimuli creation, data entry, recruiting and scheduling participants

9 4) Assisting with data analysis and preparing data for publication 5) Students with a programming background may be given the option of assisting with the development of computational models of cognition and of computer based experiments Desirable Skills and Experience Students should be enthusiastic and self motivated, able to pay attention to fine details, and comfortable working with animals, especially dogs. In order to accommodate the schedules of pet owners, students will need to have blocks of 3 4 hours at a time regularly available for research during day time hours (weekday or weekend). Experience working with animals either formally or informally is highly desirable. Computer programming experience, although not necessary, is an advantage for this project. Mechanical or electrical engineering skills are not necessary, but would be a plus (we're always building new toys for our experiments) Evaluation of participation in lab work over term. This includes attendance and contribution to lab meetings, and conducting research in an efficient, effective, and professional manner including consistent attendance and timely completion for in lab work. June 20th, 2015 and August 15th, % of total mark. Lab Journal. Students are expected to keep a research journal/work log to record lab activities every week including lab hours, tasks and progress, research ideas, and comments on discussions and assigned articles. Journal and interim research report (contained within journal) due June 20 th and whole journal submitted again on August 15 th for grading: 20% of total mark. Final Project Report. Students will prepare a scientific poster for presentation at the annual Faculty of Arts and Science 299 Research Forum OR write a final paper (approximately 6 8 pages) in the form of a scientific article: 20% of total mark. Lab meeting presentations. Students are expected to give a short (approximately 15 minute) presentation to the lab each term. 20% of total mark.