#Final Reflection!!!!!!!!!??!!!?!!!!!!!!

So, AP Research and, with it, my entire high school years are over! I didn't use gifs all year because I thought I wasn't cool enough but in celebration of a successful end of AP Capstone, I will use puppy gifs to signify THE END OF AN ERA.

I think especially before AP Seminar, my presenting skills really sucked. I used to get really really nervous and the gross type of nervous where my hands get super clammy. My eye would start twitching because I wouldn't be able to sleep and my TMJ would get really extreme, so I'd have an awful face (#notusual, #nofilter) and headache. Needless to say, the first Seminar presentations were rough. I remember during one practice one, I completely blanked and in one video there is a full 10 seconds where I don't say anything (#awkz). So the main thing AP Capstone has helped me with is the ability to present without nervousness manifesting in biological setbacks (#science). For my Research presentation, there were the initial bit of nerves that comes with any big event, but I think I performed significantly better than I would have as little junior year me (#literallyjustborn). With so many practice and recorded presentations under my belt (I don't wear belts), AP Capstone has helped me build up my confidence and presenting skills (#positivevibes). In college and life in general, this is particularly useful in basically most classes and careers (#realworld). Being able to talk in front of people and express your points is key to getting anything you want in the real world (#yougogirl, #girlboss, #whoruntheworldgirlz).



AP Capstone also helped in time management, organization, and individual work (#thebestthingscomeinthrees). With having to basically set out schedules (with some necessary advising from Mrs. Haag from time to time #necessary, #respect), we had to rely on our own work ethic and self-awareness to get the job done (#zen). We had to make sure to conduct our methods in time, leave room for editing the paper, and then practice the actual presentation in front of family and friends. When it came to the school-less days (#hallelujah), WE WERE FREE (#birdz, #coolbeanz). But with freedom came the price of actually setting tasks to do every day unless we wanted to drown in our failures (#werk). This will be very pertinent when college starts. With no parents or personalized attention from teachers, we have to look to ourselves to achieve greatness (#deep, #majorkey).



My ability to form an argument was greatly improved with these two years. So, like I wasn't topic sentence, 3 body sentences, conclusion sentence-bad, but I was not the best at formulating arguments and writing extensive papers. I didn't realize how far researchers had to go to show that they were credible, that there were other works in their respective fields, and the importance of a literature review. This was especially heightened for our high school selves, inexperienced newborn lambs (#spring, #SPRAAANGBREAKKKKK, #baaaah, #sheepnoise). The ability to make sources converse with each other (#almostpersonification) was vital to ensuring we had a cohesive research project. Also creating our own method with embedded validity precautions was crazy. It is amazing to be able to have such a unique opportunity as a #teen (#angsty, #IT'SNOTAPHASEMOM).



Ok, so this is where I leave you as I've run out of puppy gifs (lol jk there are infinite puppy gifs on the internet bc puppies are #pure and #smol). But, it had to end sometime (#tears, #emotional). I would like to thank my classmates for all the times you guys read my paper and commented on my blog (#bros, #community). I would also like to thank Mrs. Haag for not only witnessing my awkward adolescent years (that haven't ended weirdly?????) but also for being constantly supporting and helpful during these years (#grateful, #thanksgiving). Here marks the end of our crazy times, but the AP Research #mems and #skillz shall live on with me forever (#wowza).

 

Thx pals!!! Catch you on the flippity flip, my dudes.

(666) 

Practice Presentation Reflection

With the first round of practice presentations completed, it is a relief to be so close to completing the class and have something like this presentation and the final paper to show for it. Less than a week and it will truly feel like my senior year of high school has finished.

Presenting on Friday was extremely beneficial for me. Mrs. Haag, Mr. Molk, and Mr. Holt all gave me specific advice to improving my slides at places I did feel unsure about. I thought my practice presentation went really well and what I did focus on throughout the week leading up to it were executed well: eye contact, timing, and information. I made eye contact with the teachers throughout, was done in about 15 minutes, and didn't forget any vital information. 

There were a few things that I could work on for next time (and have changed in my slides). There was a slide or two that the teachers and I felt I spent too much time on and creating an additional slide not only will maintain the interest of the audience but also alleviate some of the pressure for me as I will have an additional cue to move on to the next topic. I found that some of my animations weren't perfectly aligned with my presentation, sometimes lagging or unnecessary (specifically in regards to the severity scale-- it was better just to take these animations out completely, as I end up explaining the scale in one sentence and quickly). The teachers also had a really interesting idea of adding in a check mark to symbolize I checked for statistically significance, shaving off explanation time but still ensuring that I took all validity precautions. In the script itself,  the teachers advised me to emphasize more about what makes my research different from typical neurofeedback therapy research. NFT research so far focuses on and establishes the efficacy in treating ADHD for a more general population, while my study filled the gap with finding the comparative efficacy between adults and children. Also, I need to be more clear that I chose to analyze patient records for variables specific to NFT research on ADHD patients, as opposed to other mental disorders and treatment methods. Overall, the teachers gave me some great ideas that will help me be more concise and fine-tune the presentation to make it better both visually and content-wise. 

I felt pretty great about my presentation and allocated appropriate time to each section. I do have this irrational fear that I will somehow forget everything before the final Friday, so I have been still practicing like crazy every day multiple times (my parents claim they could present my presentation now).  I have also been rereading my final paper to ensure it is my best. 

My next practice presentation is Wednesday and with these modifications in place, I think my presentation will be really effective. Comparing it to my Seminar presentation from last year and the years of nervousness I have felt from public speaking in general, I feel great that I have come such a long way in terms of confidence. I think it helped that I was so passionate about this subject, and I truly feel like an expert in this area, which is something I've never felt before. For the first time for a presentation ever, I don't feel as scared or nervous that I'll mess up but rather really ready to do well and be done with a successful year. 

(584)

Practicing Presenting

With presentations less than 2 weeks away, most of my time this week will be practicing my presentation. I think an ideal PowerPoint is one that does not take away focus from the presenter, but also adds to the presentation visually. It supports the presentation, but does not distract. I think visualizing statistics in general is hard, so the PowerPoint enables the audience to understand what the numbers mean. Pictures are really important to add interest. The presentation also has to be fast moving, but relate to the presenter's point as they express it.

Looking back on my Seminar presentation last year, I basically didn't do any of what I listed above, or did it pretty badly. I think for the type of paper I was presenting, it worked well in that it was simple, albeit boring. It could have benefited from more animations, quicker transitions, and more relevant pictures. I think our presentations for Research are extremely different from the Seminar ones. My research paper has so many different sections to go through and so many more technical terms to explain. Research presentations warrant more slides to explain everything and more animations to keep interest for the long presentation. While Seminar was more of a presenting of past work, Research is presenting our own work. In this way, I think there is more pressure to show that you are credible and what you conducted is valuable as a Research presenter. Seminar was more of a consolidation of previous thought, and relying on others credibility to support your point, so I think it was less individual-focused, and thus the slides were more vague and more outside sources. Our Research presentations depends on our passion for the subject and our expertise to showcase all our work for an entire year, a greatly different experience than Seminar.

I got to greatly improve my slides this week to fit more of that Research purpose. With Mrs. Haag helping me incorporate the beauty of animations, I feel like the inclusion of my tables and graphs for the results section is more purposeful. I added visual cues to more directly forge that link between audience and PowerPoint, facilitating interaction with those listening. I added more slides, instead of having a large portion of my script remain on one image/text box. I think what I could improve on, the more I practice, is adding more slides and determining if my slides are enough to keep capturing interest. But overall, I am happy with how they look and think their minimalistic nature and contrasts really will help the audience visualize my research.

In terms of practicing the actual presentation, I will be trying to fit in multiple practice runs a day, probably like 4 or 5. With this being my primary focus right now, I need to dedicate time to it every day. I will be practicing after I get home from work and will practice more the days I am free. I will probably get my parents to watch and friends doing SRP/Lucia when we hang out. I think rehearsing will be easier than Seminar last year, I feel like I know my topic like the back of my hand after spending a year working on it and a lot of school-less days entirely dedicated to it. I think rather than knowing the information, I need to more practice making eye contact with the audience and making sure I am changing slides/animations on time. With this week dedicated to practice, I am sure I will be more than ready for the practice presentations!

Word Count: 600

Script and Slides

We focused this week on editing our papers, writing our scripts, and composing our slides. I want to thank Audrey, Kimy, and Amaan for helping in this final round of editing to improve my paper.

When translating this paper into a script, it was incredibly hard to cut down words and consolidate information. I still need to do more cutting down, so if my commenters this week could help me with that that would be great. I am aiming for around 1,500 words given the short time limit.

In terms of the rubric, so far I think I have achieved rubric row 1 for sure in my script. I have my research question, method, and conclusion explicitly stated in the script. This part of the rubric, I think, represents basically the essence of the project, making sure you include all these parts because if you don't then you don't really have a research paper. I also think I do a good job on rubric row 2, as I explain the limitations and implications of my results in great detail, elaborating on what I could improve one and what future directions of research could be. This rubric is especially important to show the understanding of your project in all facets: its strengths, its limitations, and its significance to the future of the academic sphere.

Rubric row 3 is where I will need the most help in consolidating while still expressing the criteria. To achieve points for row 3, I need to explain how my beliefs changed due to the results of my research. I feel like this row is what I spend the most words on, and it is very important to have in my presentation, but I need help on cutting it down. In fact, I feel like I say how my hypothesis changed from predicting how children would do better to the actual result of children doing better multiple times throughout the script. That is something from my paper I need to change for the sake of time, as in the paper I had space to integrate the significance of the conclusion throughout the results and discussion section. Not only was my hypothesis disproved, but also an assumption I made about females and males doing the same with NFT was proved wrong and needs to be addressed in a concise manner. This rubric row of reflection is certainly very important to the presentation, as it shows your logical process in reaching your conclusion based on how effective and related your methods are. This row encompasses justification of your method, the role of your literature review in establishing your predictions and inspirations for research, and finally the significance of your research as a whole.

Rubric row 5 deals with presenting and the PowerPoint. In terms of my slides, I tried to keep the words minimal and added pictures where I thought people could use clarification (what NFT looks like, places on brain I focused on, things like that). But getting feedback on the slides will really help me see if they are interesting and adding value to the presentation as a whole.

With the rubric rows in mind, I tried to limit my literature review in my script as much as possible to leave more room for the explanations of my methods and results. I wanted to only emphasize how I reached my hypothesis, so I cut out a lot of the details about the benefits and limitations of medication and tried to showcase the difference in symptoms between adults and children and the main limit of NFT: how it unevenly treats certain symptoms of ADHD. I do need help in cutting down this part even more, as I feel like my script is still too long to fit into 15 minutes, especially since I want to not talk so fast people can't understand.

I hope with this coming week of editing I can get the script cut down and get feedback on my slides to ensure I can have a great presentation.

Word Count: 673

Reflection on Peer Editing, the Rubric, and Upcoming Presentations

The past week was spent peer editing our final research papers, which I am so happy we were able to do. Getting Blog of the Week last week was also really awesome and motivating. When I read my paper it is harder to find where I went wrong because I have been so immersed in my research and writing this for so long that everything seems right. But the comments I got were incredibly helpful in not only cutting down words but making sure my points were communicated clearly through my own voice. Grace, Max, and Kristiana all helped me make everything more concise.

My literature review needed the most work by far. My sentence structure was choppy and the transitions were just a repetition of the previous sentences; as a result, nothing really flowed or felt connected. There were entire sections for which I dedicated so many words to (for example CBT and drug/dependency disorders) that could be severely cut down or placed elsewhere, and the paper would not suffer. Often I would present a source and entire blocks of quotes without presenting my own interpretation or thoughts. Ultimately, implementing these suggestions helped me cut down 1,500 words and for the paper to be under 5,000 words. I combined sentences that seemed disjointed and reworked transitions to incorporate ideas of the next paragraph instead of reiterating the same information. I cut down the quotes to leave room for my voice. For my methods, I was able to separate the limitations and future directions section a bit more, so only new information and conjectures were being presented. Other parts of the paper, I improved by combining paragraphs and reorganizing certain paragraphs for clarification (ex: putting the explaining of the t-test and what it does first before going into how to do t-test in methods). At first, I was afraid I would cut out the interesting conclusion regarding difference in improvement of ADHD with NFT dependent on gender to bring it under the word limit, but by going through the entire paper once more and finding where I repeated myself or was too choppy allowed me to not have to make that sacrifice. I was overall so relieved when I was making edits and looking back on the first rendition of the literature review, especially, I have come so far.

Now to go over the rubric and see how I feel about my paper accomplishing each row's criteria.
Row 1: I think I spend a lot of time describing the purpose of my paper and the significance in this sphere of research. I build up to articulating the gap at the end of the literature review. I think I do reference previous research and where mine fits in in comparison, so I think I could score well on this row.
Row 2: I try to put sources in conversations with each other and included quite a few that corroborated with each other. I do not have many that disagreed and had to cut down some of this for word count. I do connect previous studies to my own, but I think I will need help with next round of editing to see if I put sources in conversation with each other enough.
Row 3: This section I think I did a pretty good job with. I use sources that are credible, significant, and relevant and cite and explain the credibility of each source.
Row 4: For this row, I just this past week edited the methods to ensure it scores higher. With Mrs. Haag's help, I was able to identify where I could justify why I am conducting this particular research design and thus earn more points for this section. I hope my peers could please double check to see if I articulated it as clearly as possible (while being concise as I am so dangerously close to the word limit).
Row 5: I do acknowledge the limitations and implications of my own research, in my discussion section exclusively. Generally, I describe links between evidence and claims and make relevant conclusions.
Row 6: This past week has been spent working on this section. I rewrote some parts to interpret more sources and to use evidence that was most relevant to the point I was making. My first literature review would have scored low on this, but I think now I do a good job of interpreting most of the evidence. There are some places (NFT paragraph) I am afraid my voice is lost, so I think there is still room for improvement. I do manage to interpret my data effectively in the results section and the significance in the discussion section.
Row 7: I think organization-wise, my research flows logically and actively shows my reasoning. With the new edits, there aren't choppy sentences or repetition so this part was greatly improved. The graphs and tables are clear and relevant.
Row 8 and 9: I was able to also improve these sections, by improving grammar, conventions, and word choice throughout to make it as concise and easily understandable as possible. I did integrate a lot of sources with my own voice, but again this is something I hope my peers can look for and help me improve upon with a second round of editing, as I do have some longer quotes in my paper.

Next, our presentations are coming up after we finish these papers. I think what I am most confident about my presentation is that all my information will make logical sense and flow well. I can picture presenting the gap in the research and then going into each part. However, I am most nervous about presenting all that information in the time limit given. It was so hard to cut down words from my paper itself, so making sure I can communicate all my points in 15 points is stressful. I am unclear of how to really prepare for oral defense and I am scared I won't be able to answer immediately and clearly articulate my thoughts. Hopefully, I can practice presenting in front of many people and see what questions are most commonly asked or what most confusion stems from. I can do some reflection to see what kinds of questions my content would evoke. Ultimately, I know with some planning I can make sure my presentation reflects the work and discovery of this past year.

Word Count: 1,069

Reflection of Paper

With the discussion section written, my paper is finally complete. Completing all the pieces separately and now watching them combine to form a final product is exciting. While it feels like we have come a long way, there are still definitely things to do.

I think one major strength of my paper is that the language does not appear too technical or complicated, especially in the literature review. I like how I was able to transform the literature review to make it easier to understand, and, consequently, easier to connect to the rest of the paper. I like the topics in the literature review and I think covering the different types of treatment and the difference between adult and child ADHD are vital to understanding my study of NFT. I think I do a good job of pointing out the gap in the research and articulating the significance of this study.

The results section, for me, is also one of the highlights of the paper. I think I was able to graphically represent the data in a visually clear way. Mrs. Haag helped me to think of ideas to present the various pieces of my project through different types of graphs and tables. With the information being laid out in ways which the reader could distinctly point out the difference between adult and child scores or severity levels within the population, readers could be more involved and invested in the research. I like how my results section is very clear and comprehensive while communicating the surprising findings I discovered and the interesting nuances of the study.

I think the parts that need the most work are the methods and discussion sections. I worry the methods section is not as fully explained as it should be, but I need my classmates to point out specifically if there are places where I am too vague about what I did or the term was not defined in the most concise way. The methods section feels much longer than it could be as I repeated the same steps for both the adults and child groups. In terms of justification of finding if the values are within normal distribution of each other, I don't think I do a great job of fully fleshing this out. The method section can be greatly cut down and made more focused.

The discussion section possessed a different problem. The discussion section may be too detailed and trying to pack as many possible future directions and speculation for justifications of conclusions than was necessary. I think I got a little excited with all the reasons for why adults did better than children and what this prime age bracket means that I got carried away. This section can definitely be cut down and I need help including only the most relevant, interesting explanations and future directions, so the end of the paper does not get bogged down by the many possible research studies that could be conducted.

While I feel the way my literature review is written is clear, I need people to verify whether the order in which is it is written makes sense for the rest of the paper. Is the transition from talking about the ADHD in general and then going into the differences between adult and child ADHD seamless? Or does it seem disjointed, especially in transitioning to the different types of treatment? And then in my discussion section, I don't know if I evidently connected back to the literature review as best as I could. Was the justification of NFT over other treatments in the discussion section relevant at the very beginning, or should I put it at the end of that section? Are there other ways I can connect back to the literature review without having to state/remind the reader I did. I tried to mention the inattention symptom of children as being one of the possible reasons the child group did not improve as much as the adults during therapy and I used the same sources in the discussion as I did in the literature review. Is this a viable way of connecting everything together? Did the conclusion at the end of the discussion section manage to tie everything together? And then I also always worry about my transitions between sections as this has commonly been my downfall. I believe I consciously tried to transition between each section and topic change, but it would be really helpful if you guys can confirm.

Ultimately, while I am done with the bulk of the writing and the researching, there still a lot to do in terms of editing and refining. My entire paper is around 1,500 words over the word limit so I have a lot of cutting down to do (most likely done in the methods, literature review, and discussion section). I hope with all your help I will be able to make it the best it can be.

(825)

Discussion Section

This week was dedicated to fully writing out our results section and starting to outline our discussion section. The discussion section is a vital part of the research and brings necessary explanations and context to the results section. Especially for my project, the discussion section can serve as a place for reasons why my hypothesis was proved wrong, why males and females did exhibit an observable difference, and the fact that age and improvement from neurofeedback therapy were not linearly dependent like I thought. These nuances and contradictions that the results bring forth can be investigated and tied back to the very beginning of the research, the literature review. I analyzed the same three studies from last week to see what I could specifically include in my discussion that would follow the model of successful papers.

The study, "Efficacy of Neurofeedback treatment in ADHD: The effects on Inattention, Impulsivity, and Hyperactivity: A meta-analysis" by Arns, Ridder, Strehl, Breteler, and Coenen, was a paper that served as an exemplar for creating my own discussion section. Their section begins with a reiteration of the purpose of the research and a concisely explained method, in order to refresh readers. Then the greater conclusion is described in references to the results. Then the limitations are sectioned off to show that while this research did have fruitful results, improvements to the sampling and method could be made. This leads into the future research that would mitigate such limitations. The previous explanation about the hazardous effects of medication is mentioned once more to provide significance to the efficacy of neurofeedback therapy. This is a way I can organize my own discussion section, in a way that everything flows and transitions seamlessly. Starting with the quick recap, description of results and reasons why, limitations of the research, and then future questions and directions for the research.

The second study, "Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in Adulthood: Concordance and Differences between Self- and Informant Perspectives on Symptoms and Functional Impairment" by Morstedt, Corbisiero, Bitto, had a similarly organized structure to the first study, but incorporated more explanation. For the conclusion about the consistency of the use of diagnostic ADHD measures, the authors provided possible explanations for the results, such as the possible influence of comorbidity, lack of awareness of patients with ADHD, and gender psychological differences. These explanations are then supported with other sources that indicated similar conclusions or lend justification for what happened. This study, in this unique way, not only explained the study's interesting results, but found other studies that more or less corroborated their conclusion. While my study is in a realm of new psychological treatments that has not been heavily researched, I can find more general scientific discoveries that may have resulted in my own results. For example, while the link between neuroplasticity and ADHD has not been explored extensively, I can explain the greater improvement of teenagers/young adults group as possibly due to greater neuroplasticity of younger brains affecting the reduction of the ADHD symptoms.

The third study, "The Effect of Neurofeedback Therapy on Reducing Symptoms Associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Case Series Study" by Deilami, Jahandidedh, et al., showed that while its results corroborated other studies, it was still significant in the research world because of how the research was conducted on just 12 children, so there was more focus on specific ADHD symptoms and the specifics of the training. Similarly, my study also used a relatively small number of samples, so justifying its importance in showing the efficacy of neurofeedback therapy in general, especially for adults, is key to ensuring its significance. Like this study, I can show the limitation of my research without sacrificing the merits and conclusions it does present.

Right now I have broken it up into very general sections, but looking at these studies and my outline, I see that there probably is a better way of organizing my discussion section. Seeing how other studies divided the section in a way that each previous part flowed into the next, I wanted to replicate a similar structure. I think starting off with my most significant and nuanced conclusion (that there is a prime age bracket for which neurofeedback therapy decreased ADHD scores the most and thus leads to the most improvement) should go immediately after I restate the purpose of the study. Then I can connect back to my literature review, by presenting my hypothesis and previous studies that would indicate that children should have improved more than adults. I can further provide an explanation of why this wasn't the case (children are less incentivized, motivated, and dedicated) and tie this the significance of the research. Now that it has been evidenced that neurofeedback therapy leads to great improvement, especially for young adults/teens, it is supported as a better treatment method than medication. This is particularly useful as young adults/teens, according to my literature review, are more likely to become addicted and abuse ADHD medication, so this treatment method is a crucial alternative. My conclusions about the age bracket can be grouped into one section and I can have a separate section dedicated to the differences in improvement based on gender. I can reference my literature review as other studies did not find an obvious difference in ADHD exhibited by the genders, but my study indicates one group does better with neurofeedback treatment, which can be attributed either to differences in ADHD, the way the therapy is conducted, or general personalities/instincts of each gender. Then I can go into the limitations of the research (such as not having an equal number of participants for each gender) and then conclude with future directions/questions that would mitigate these limitations and further attempt to explore/support the conclusions of my study.

Overall, I think this discussion section will prove to be extremely pivotal in presenting my research.

(982)