Students Present Their Findings: GOVT 10 Poster Sessions F23

Students have been working hard to find interesting topics and have carefully designed their studies to test empirical hypotheses this term in Prof. Horiuchi's GOVT 10:Quantitative Political Analysis. Some studies are based on observational data, while others are based on experimental data (two being based on conjoint analysis). 

Group 1: Attention and Gender

We want to determine if a correlation exists between biological sex and the amount of attention paid (in terms of attention check questions answered correctly on a survey). We hypothesize that women will perform better on attention checks than men.

Group 2: How Does a Candidate's Social Media Presence Affect College-Age Voter Interest?

Previous research has demonstrated that social media has a positive effect on political engagement (Dimitrova et al. 2014). Because of this, we used a true experimental design in order to test the effectiveness of a social media presence on a college student's interest in a candidate. We exposed the treatment group to hypothetical social media posts for a candidate. Both groups were then asked to respond to the same post-survey questions. Following this, we performed a regression analysis as well as a cross-tabulation to analyze the difference between these two groups and assess the effect of social media on voting and future interest in the hypothetical candidate.

Group 3: How does Trump's Endorsement Affect Voter Support of Candidates Running for State and National House? 

The goal of our project was to determine whether the polarization of the Republican Party extended to local elections with our hypothesis being that local elections would be more polarized than national elections. To test our hypothesis, we ran an experiment with two experiments (one at the local level and one at the national level) where we asked participants in a survey whether they would vote for a hypothetical Republican candidate. The participants are either told that the candidate was endorsed by Donald Trump or not. We found that a Trump endorsement had no effect among republican voters on the national level but had a small but significant effect on the local level.

Group 4: Do Casual photos increase the student approval rating of President Beilock?

This study investigated the impact of President Beilock's image on social media on Dartmouth students' approval ratings. Students in this survey were randomly placed into two groups: one that viewed a professional headshot of Beilock and one that viewed a casual photo of Beilock. Both groups also read about Beilock's policies. Students then completed a survey assessing their approval of Beilock as a person, of her policies, and overall approval. Statistical analyses revealed no significant differences in mean ratings between the group that viewed the professional headshot and the one that saw the casual photo. However, we found some effects among subgroups. 

Group 5: Title: Sleepy Students: Determining the Impact of Class Periods on Median Grade

Concerns about early school start times in elementary and secondary education have been rising in recent years. Several highly cited studies have found that early morning classes result in less overall sleep, worse attendance, attentiveness, and academic performance. Extending this concern regarding early start times to higher education, this project investigates whether early morning classes result in lower-class medians at Dartmouth College. We hypothesize that student exhaustion will lead to lower performance (indicated by median grade) in earlier classes, with the same effect being observable in evening classes. To investigate this, we collected data on the time periods of multiple classes and their corresponding median grades at Dartmouth College. Utilizing this data, a linear and non-linear regression was run in the data analysis'. Our results indicate a significant, positive linear correlation between median grades and start times, with the median grade increasing as class periods begin later.