Research

The Gemstone Class of 2017 cohort formed its teams in April 2014. In preparation for conducting research during our sophomore year, Team MORALS conducted a preliminary summary of resources over the summer of 2014 in order to better form a solid foundation in value systems, methods with which to quantitatively analyze morals and legislative/political issues, and edit our research question and end goals if necessary. 

 

Team MORALS submitted our literature review in September 2014 and our methodology paper in October 2014. We presented our thesis proposal on March 12, 2015, before a panel that included Professor Michael Spivey, a doctoral student and lecturer in the Department of Government & Politics; Dr. Kristan Skendall, the Associate Director of the Gemstone Program; and Dr. Susan Dwyer, our mentor.

 

In Spring 2015, we raised $4,570 for our research through our 30-day crowdfunding campaign on LaunchUMD (see more here!). Over Summer 2015, we worked on refining our survey and getting feedback on survey content and format. For Fall 2015, we are working on getting IRB approval to conduct focus groups to validate our survey content on values and issues, and we anticipate that we will be able to distribute our survey nationwide in Spring 2016!