AP Research Oral defense (this is my last straw this is the worst class ever do NOT TAKE AP RESEARCH EVER guys I can't even do my presentation without staring at my notecards the whole time so thats so embarrassing anyway hoping for at least a 3.)

i hate my life

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

My initial research question was focused on stress and cognitive ability in general. However, after extensive research I found that there was only research on how stress affects the cognitive ability of adults and children, not teenagers. I also learned that there are variations in the way people are affected by stress.  As a stressed teenager, I wanted to explore how teenagers are affected by stress and if there was a correlation between APs and the variations in the effect of stress.

2. 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?

Originally for my method I wanted to hand out 3 different cognitive tests, however after having my work reviewed by the IRB I realized I needed to have a shorter test. One scholar in the field of cognitive ability, Fernández Martínet, examined how daily stress affects basic cognitive function and school performance in 100 students, Spain. In order to conduct this student he and his team used the Operation Span Task. Because it combines memory and processing tasks, providing a more accurate representation of working memory capacity I mirrored it my study.

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

Initially in my research project I wanted three different cognitive tests, however after it was reviews by the IRB I determined that due to time constraints, this was too much so i decided to chose the just one test, which was the Operation Span Task because it combines memory and processing tasks, providing a more accurate representation of working memory capacity

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

In the questionnaire I asked participants the number of APs they have taken and asked how many honors class students have taken since those are hard classes. However, the school I used for my experiment had limited honors classes and most students did not remember how many they have taken. Therefore I determined I could honors classes would be insignificant since most students didn't know or put a low number that made it insignificant. I decided that number of AP classes was important since a different number of ap classes could result in varying ability to handle stress

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

The Gap in the scholarly conversation was that previous research focused on the overall impact of stress on cognitive performance without exploring individual differences in the way students are affected by stress. No previous studies I had found explored the relationship between highschool ap students, stress and cognitive ability. My research concluded that there is no correlation between stress aps and cognitive ability, however a future researcher can look into factors of APs like class difficulty of the amount of homework given could lead to a possible different conclusion which could enhance the understanding of the relationship between aps and cognitive ability. 

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

A limitation of my study was the assumption of stress and the assumption of the same level of stress. It is possible that students with the same number of APs had different levels of stress and therefore their cognitive ability could not be compared. This lack of specificity could have been a reason why my conclusion was that there was no correlation between Aps, stress, and cognitive ability. 

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

Policymakers and curriculum developers should consider these findings when designing academic programs. Ensuring that challenging coursework like AP classes is accessible and beneficial to a diverse range of students involves creating supportive environments that foster resilience and cognitive growth without overwhelming students. Educational policymakers might consider the benefits of providing more flexible and personalized learning paths for students. Recognizing that AP classes can have varying impacts on students' cognitive abilities and stress levels could lead to the development of policies that allow students to tailor their coursework more closely to their capacities and interests

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

The rather low correlation and significance between the number of AP Classes and the students cognitive ability may suggest that existing factors should be further explored. Further researchers should explore things like course difficulty, course workload, the amount of work a student has to do outside of school as factors that produce different results for correlation between stress aps and cognitive ability. 

9. 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?

Exploring how stress impacts students in different parts of the world and within various educational systems can teach us a lot about how culture shapes our experiences. This process helps us understand that what causes stress and how we cope with it can be different from one place to another. For example, in some cultures, there might be a lot of pressure to excel academically, while in others, there could be more focus on mental well-being. By considering diverse perspectives, we can gain a deeper understanding of how stress affects students worldwide and how we can support them better. Future researchers can use a method similar to mine to find these results and can even look into factors like course difficulty and course work load to gain a better understanding of the correlation between stress aps and cognitive ability. 

10. How did you handle the uncertainty of the research process?

To handle the uncertainty of the research project is by talking to my teacher and my fellow classmates. Seeing that they were in a similar place as me in the research process usually eased my worries. I was also able to discuss with my classmates how they were doing certain parts of the research process so that I may also try to do something similar to them. For example, I was unsure how I was going to collect a sample of participants, so I asked my classmates what they were doing and they helped me to create a simple random survey of teachers to send my test to. 

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

If I could revisit my research process, I would ask participants more questions about specific stress causing factors of APs. However my new conclusion was that there was no correlation between APs stress and cognitive ability. In my methods I only asked about how many APs a student was taken, however to gain a better understanding or to create a new conclusion, I also could have asked about things like, what specific APs the students were taking, how many assignments a student gets, how much time they spend outside of school doing hw/studying for the APs, and how difficult or easy the students would say each course is.

12. 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 I developed was being able to synthesize existing studies/information. This skill will be important for any future research projects by ensuring that my work contributes meaningfully to the academic community by building upon what is already known and creating research towards what still needs to be discovered.