Please complete a research application and choose one of the research positions listed below (research applications available on the Undergraduate Research link or in Townshend Hall 141). Please return your completed applications to the contact person listed for the project via email.
Below are the research projects that are available for students to work on for SOCIOL 4998 credit Spring Semester 2025. SOCIOL 4998 is one of the options that students can use to fulfill the major Experiential Learning Requirement - PLEASE NOTE, you may only count 3 hours total of research credit towards the SOCIOL-BA and CRIMINO-BA majors and 6 hours total of research credit towards the SOCIOL-BS major. Also, remember that research experience is especially important if you are planning on applying to graduate school!
Please read the requirements for each project carefully, as some require either specific coursework or specific GPA.
The emergence of inequality in small, task-focused groups
Email applications to Dr. David Melamed at melamed.9@osu.edu
Small groups form hierarchies. Often these hierarchies make interaction easier (ie. they are functional) but they are also often based on information that does not convey competence. Moreover, hierarchies change. If a person who is assumed to be less worthy contributes positively to the group, and it is recognized by the group, that person will move up in the hierarchy. Existing theory and methods account for these changes to group hierarchies, but implementing these methods is very labor intensive, including hand-coding the original data. This project seeks to automate coding small group interactions using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Approaches so that we can better understand the emergence of inequality in small task groups. Student workers will work with PI Professor David Melamed and his team of graduate students. In particular, we will code data for instances of status transfer between participants. Subsequently, the team will use the coded data to train AI.
Requirements:
Students should have at least a 3.0 GPA. Preferred qualifications include some coursework in the social sciences, especially research methods. Interested students should email me (melamed.9@osu.edu) with their resume/CV, a 200-word statement about their interest in this project, and how many credit hours they would like to take.