Research Proposal for Formal Report

To:                   Dr. Erika Paterson, ENGL 301 Instructor

From:              Jake Moh, ENGL 301 Student

Date:               February 15, 2022

Subject:           Proposal for Improving the Recruitment of Volunteers at Visual Cognition Lab

 

Introduction

 

The Visual Cognition Lab is a vision science lab in the Psychology Department of the University of British Columbia operated by Dr. Ronald A. Rensink as the principal investigator. Our lab is interested in investigating visual intelligence, how the human visual system uses the light entering the eyes to create a variety of perceptual experiences.  The researchers are interested in exploring the mechanisms that carry this out and the ways this knowledge can help with the design of effective visual displays.

 

The lab has multiple projects are that owned by different groups of people with most projects using software programs to conduct experiments. Therefore, researchers must have a basic understanding of programming to effectively develop new experiments and modify the existing ones. Once the experiment is made, participants are collected to conduct the experiment on the computer located inside an isolated room. The experiment usually consists of participants choosing one of two similar but different pictures in sequence. After the participants have successfully completed the experiment, the experiment is saved on an online database where researchers retrieve the data to analyze the result.

Audience Description

 

The formal report is targeted to lab members in Visual Cognition Lab at University of British Columbia.

Statement of Problem

 

Although most lab researchers have a good understanding of the experiment objective, design, specification, and basic programming knowledge, they often lack both the knowledge and experience to code a complicated experiment. Also, the researcher’s main attention and time are dedicated to reading research papers, discussing with other researchers, and coming up with a novel research proposal for the next experiment. Previously there were programmers in the lab who specifically worked on coding the experiments for researchers but many of the members left after graduation. This lead the coding team to be short-staffed with multiple experiments to be coded.

 

Proposed Solution

 

As a solution to this problem, new programmers need to be recruited with a systematic hiring process and interviewing. To make this happen there must be a recruitment process to find interested applicants. Then the applicants must be selected based on behavioural and technical skills by conducting interviews. If the applicant has successfully passed the interview, the applicant is officially part of the coding team.

 

Scope

 

To determine the optimal method of recruitment, interview, and management, I plan to investigate the following questions:

 

1. What is the best way to advertise the programming position?
2. Who should we advertise the position to?
3. When should we advertise the position?
4. Why would people want to apply for this position?
5. What skills and traits should we prioritize when hiring programmers?
6. How are the skills and traits measured?
7. How many interviews should take place?
8. Who will conduct interviews?

 

Methods

 

The primary source of data is from surveying lab members at the Visual Cognition Lab with majority of participants being programmers. Surveys are ideal for this research since surveys are easy to conduct and is great tool used to build visuals such as graphs and tables. The secondary source is from interviewing students, researchers, professors, and programmers. Although interviews are generally more costly compared to surveys, they provide more depth into a specific topic and have a higher response rate.

 

 

My Qualifications

 

I am a 4^th-year Computer Science student at the University of British Columbia with a previous bachelor’s degree in biology, with 16 months of experience working as a programmer. I have a strong background in both programming and research from my two degrees. I have gone through the process of recruitment and hiring as an applicant for several programmer positions with interviewing experiences. Also, I have been in this lab for over 2 years and successfully completed two major projects as directed studies in the lab.

 

Conclusions

 

With my experience and strong technical background, I plan to collect information through personal experience and interviews by narrowing the scope of the problem into 8 components. I will develop a systemic method for hiring and interviewing applicants for the programmer position at Visual Cognition Lab as a solution to the lack of programmers required to code research experiments.