What Went Into Our Project?
Selecting Our Sources
We chose the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) as our main source because we wanted to focus on educational success, and we felt that the test scores the SEDA data set perfectly operationalized this variable. Additionally, its focus on socioeconomic factors were appealing to us considering the scope of our research questions. Moreover, we found that the SEDA data set was easy to clean and computationally process, making our research much more accessible. Similarly, we chose the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Stabilization Fund to further pinpoint the ways that education was impacted by COVID-19 across states. Lastly, we used a variety of journals and resources such as the UCLA Library to help pinpoint significant literature that can build our argument.
Processing Our Data
We used various statistical methods to process our data. Beginning with exploratory data analysis, we used software such as R and Tableau to determine the distribution of key variables in our data and compare test score changes between geographies, subjects, socioeconomic groups, and different levels of funding. Simple statistical tests such as the t-test and ANOVA were also used to determine the statistical significance of any differences observable to the eye in the data visualizations.
Presenting Our Narrative
We chose WordPress to display our narrative because we recognize its humanistic nature that optimizes accessibility through its visibility and design flexibility. The open and public nature of WordPress makes it so that our narrative can be easily read by people for any given reason. Additionally, the design flexibility that WordPress provides makes it so that we can add visualizations, titles, and hierarchical sections that allow us to effectively craft a narrative that can be accessible to people. That being said, we wanted a simple yet sleek design with neutral colors, various pieces of multimedia, and legible fonts in order to fully reinforce the narrative itself. WordPress allowed us to do exactly this.
Meet The Coviducation Team!
Kara Chu
Content Specialist
Hi, welcome to our site! I’m Kara, a 3rd year majoring in Applied Linguistics and minoring in Digital Humanities and Professional Writing! As the content specialist, I oversaw the creation of our main narrative and ensured that the data visualizations and maps integrate neatly with the written content.
I loved competing in my school’s spelling bees as a kid!
Isa Zavala
Project Manager
Hi! I’m Isa, a 4th year student majoring in Communication and minoring in Digital Humanities. As the project manager, I am responsible for streamlining the overall workflow of our project.
I played the violin during elementary school!
Sonia Yan
Data Specialist & Data Visualization Specialist
Hi! I’m Sonia, a 4th year majoring in Statistics & Data Science and Business Economics. As the data and data visualization specialist, I focused on understanding the data documentation, analyzing the data, and creating our data visualizations using R and Tableau.
My favorite subject in school was history!
Tian Ouyang
Data Specialist & Mapping Specialist
Hi everyone, my name is Tian and I am a 4th year majoring in Statistics & Data Science with a minor in Mathematics. As the data specialist, I was responsible for cleaning and refining the data for future analysis. Additionally, I helped construct several geographical visualizations for the project using R and tableau.
I was featured in Daily Bruin!
Kyle Wong
Web Specialist
Hi all, I’m Kyle, a 4th year majoring in Statistics & Data Science. As the web specialist I am overseeing the design, structure, and maintenance of our website.
My favorite subject in school was math!
Acknowledgements
Thank you to our TA Nick for your guidance and advice throughout the quarter! Your support and feedback has been invaluable and we appreciate you very much! ❤️