Michael F
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at University of Southern California (USC)
Expertise
Education, policy, quantitative research, Python (basics)
Bio
Hello! I am a current PhD candidate in Education Policy with a focus on K-12. I was formerly a high school mathematics teacher for five years, where I had the pleasure of primarily teaching AP Statistics. Over my years in education as a classroom teacher and private tutor, I’ve helped hundreds of students understand complex topics, expand their thinking, and grow as learners and as people in topics ranging from math to history to English to film and screenwriting (I was a screenwriting major in undergrad!) When I took the step to become a PhD student and conduct original research, it was intimidating. Fortunately for me, I’ve had wonderful mentors point the way and help me conceive and execute projects that I’m passionate about. I hope that I can play a similar mentor role for current high school students interested in starting their own projects!Project ideas
Is the SAT an Accurate Gauge of Intelligence?
Do standardized tests accurately reflect student intelligence and ability? Or are they unfairly biased against lower income students and students of color? In this project, a student would use multiple regression with publicly available data sets to see what factors are most predictive of standardized test scores. To do this project, students would first build familiarity with regression and basic quantitative research techniques. Then, they would review literature in the education field about this topic and compile it. From there, they would gain familiarity with a software program (ideally Stata) to clean the relevant data and run the analyses. Finally, they would write up the findings and combine with the literature review section for a completed paper.