AP Research Oral Defense Questions

How did your initial exploration of the scholarly conversation lead to your final research question/project goal?

When exploring the scholarly conversation around cosmetic overconsumption and influencer perspectives as a whole, I was only able to find two academic sources that interviewed actual influencers. One from 2025 was about how the political economy affects consumer behavior with influencer marketing in mind, and the other from 2017 was about platform evolution and influencer identity. This showed me that there was a very large gap in influencer perspectives in the academic world, so I had a lot of freedom in figuring out my specific inquiry. I really wanted to explore the psychological connection between influencer marketing and overconsumption, which is where the perspectives of influencers came into play. From there, I was able to narrow down my question with feasibility and specificity in mind.

How did your review of the methods used by scholars in the field inform your selection of a research method/process that is aligned with your research question/project goal?

My review of the methods used by scholars in my field reaffirmed my initial ideas that some kind of qualitative research method made the most sense for my research. It was also able to inform me of the pros and cons of interviews (which was my initial method), and eventually coached my decision to not use interviews as my research method, just because of how many additional factors had to be considered. From there, I thought that surveys would be the next best thing, and scholars in my field validated that idea, both through the lesser amount of complicating factors, and through mass amounts of previous successful research using surveys as a method.

How did the choices you made when designing or implementing your research method impact your research process?

When designing and implementing my research method, two of the main things I focused on were feasibility and timeliness, so I would make all of my choices for the research process according to those factors. This allowed the conduction of my research to be successful, because I made sure not to do anything that wasn’t practical for my research process, or that would be a burden to me in any way. On the other hand, I did make some choices like using my personal TikTok account instead of a new one or not realize how much time I would need to set aside for data collection. That ended up being limitations for my research, which impacted the generalizability of my whole research process.

How did you determine which results generated by your research method were most important in informing your new understanding?

I determined which results generated by my research method were most important by question. For example, I had some survey questions about overall demographics of participants, questions about brand behavior or the brand landscape, questions that were relevant to my topic and could assist the overall understanding, but didn’t necessarily answer the question of how perspectives impacted content creation. Because of this, I focused on questions that did specifically ask about perspectives or impacts to content creation and consumption, I felt they would have the largest impact on informing my new understanding.

How does your new understanding address a gap in the scholarly conversation?

My new understanding helps to address a gap in the scholarly conversation because it provides previously unknown insight into the influencer perspective on cosmetic overconsumption. In my prior research, I wasn’t able to find any scholarly articles about the relationship between influencer perspectives and cosmetic overconsumption, which my understanding directly addresses. There is also a general gap in research of influencer perspectives, which my research additionally attempts to fill part of.

How did the limitations of your method or data influence your new understanding?

The limitations of my method and my data influenced my confidence and sense of validity in my research, as they greatly restrict its generalizability. They also influence the ability of my new understanding to fill a gap in the scholarly conversation, as well as my reflection on the process of creating my new understanding, they influence my thoughts on what I would do differently given the opportunity.

What are the real-world implications or consequences related to your findings?

The real-world implications of my findings is that many people will have a greater understanding of cosmetic overconsumption and what goes on behind the screens of an influencer. This includes academic scholars in the sociology field, as well as consumers of online beauty content. This is important because it allows for a very relevant and unexplored topic to be less unknown, and it provides direction for future research. It also helps consumers of beauty content be more aware of the factors at play when they see a video promoting a certain product, it can help them make more informed purchasing decisions.

How do your findings provide directions for future research in the field?

My findings provide directions for future research in the field by offering up a baseline for understanding some of the complex motives behind content creation. They also give future researchers more of an idea of what kinds of qualitative questions influencers could be asked, for example, what kinds are helpful and what kinds are not. My findings also do contain a lot of limitations, some more avoidable than others, which future researchers are now aware of and can take into consideration. Additionally, my survey had a question about brand behavior post-overconsumption controversy, but didn’t really find any correlations since my research wasn’t focused on it, but this would be a relevant area for future research to be done in.

Think back to the initial curiosity that sparked your inquiry. What other curiosities do you have and how has this process prepared you to explore them?

A couple topics that have really sparked my interest lately have been about the state of politics in America right now and the feeling that we’re going backwards in terms of progressiveness. My journey of inquiry through AP Research has enlightened me in a lot of ways, and I now feel much more informed about how to conduct research. At the beginning of this process I had no idea how to collect data, what potential methodologies even were, etc., but now I feel like I’ve been able to succeed to some degree in all areas of the research process, and I feel very capable of taking on a similar task.

How did you handle the uncertainty of the research process?

In my research process most of my uncertainty was based around the feasibility of my research question and the fact that I wanted to collect data from actual influencers. To combat this, I made sure to take the practicality of everything into account before making a decision. For example, I originally wanted to interview influencers, but after reading about interviews as a research method and about the complexities of contacting public figures, I decided to do a survey, I felt that was more doable. Then, when selecting the interviewers I wanted to reach out to, I made sure to set a follower range of 10K to 1M, so that I could be working with solidified influencers, but not ones who were too too famous, as that would make them more difficult to get in contact with.

If you could revisit your research process, what would you do differently and why?

If I could revisit this process, I would most likely do a lot of research about common limitations of qualitative research and survey research in general so I could potentially get ahead of them before collecting data, as I only discovered some of my limitations until after the research process was mostly over. Similarly, I would use a brand new TikTok account instead of my personal one, so my sample would be a tad more randomized and not aligned to my personal TikTok algorithm. Lastly, I would start the process of finding and reaching out to influencers earlier, as that time period for me was only around a month, and I definitely felt rushed. That also would’ve potentially allowed more influencers to get back to me, had the cutoff date for data collection not been so close to when I started reaching out to them.

What was the most important research skill you developed as a result of this process, and how might you apply it to your future endeavors?

The most important research skill that I’ve developed from this process is definitely learning how to properly interpret and understand other academic papers. Instead of just reading the abstract to know if a source is useful or not, I’ve learned how to skim a paper and still get a comprehensive gist of it. I’ve learned how to understand a paper even if it’s not on a subject I’m knowledgeable about, and even if it uses a lot of vocabulary that I’m unfamiliar with. I’ve already applied this skill in a couple of my other classes such as AP Lang and IB Philosophy when finding sources for various essays, but I will further apply it to other academic areas when I’m faced with analyzing a difficult text or a text out of my comfort zone.