Category: Annotated Bibliography

Group Members: Nicole Budzinski, Leslie Epps, Raymund Rodriguez, and Reid Vero

Proposed Research Question: How does different water types affect radish seed germination?

Kang, Y., & Wan, S. 2005. Effect of soil water potential on radish (Raphanus sativus L.) growth and water use under drip irrigation. Scientia Horticulturae, 106: 275-292. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030442380500124X

In the experiment carried out by Kang and Wan, different soil water potentials of irrigation were tested in relation to their effect on radish growth. The researchers applied various water potential levels to radishes and collected data based on radish growth, development, root distribution and market quality.

This experiment would be incredibly useful to our future experiment, as the researchers outlined and followed a comprehensive methodology and the experiment resulted in definitive conclusions about the effect of soil water potential on radishes. The researchers determined a growth area in which to plant the radishes and devised five different soil water potential treatments for the radishes. Over the course of two years, the researchers conducted this experiment and determined that although the soil water potential treatment had no impact on radish growth and development, higher soil water potential treatments resulted in lower root weight density and a smaller dry domain in the root zone.

Novero, R., D. H. Smith, F. D. Moore, J. F. Shanahan, and R. d’Andria. 1991. Field-Grown Tomato Response to Carbonated Water Application. Agron. J. 83:911-916. doi:10.2134/agronj1991.00021962008300050026x.

The research performed by Novera, et al., focused on the possibility of achieving greater and faster agricultural yields through the use of carbon dioxide. Because direct carbon dioxide enrichment of the atmosphere would not be cost-effective, the carbon dioxide was applied to water. Tomato plants were used to test the effects of irrigated carbonated water on fruit yield, soil, and the surrounding atmosphere. It was found that carbon dioxide had a prominent and detectable presence in both soil and the surrounding atmosphere, while also increasing tomato yields.

The information presented throughout the research is reliable due to the multiple trials performed under different irrigation intervals. The experiment was also performed in two different years, 1988 and 1999, to compare results. In both years, tomato plant yields showed increases during the intervals in which the experiment took place.

With the results of Novero’s research in mind, it will prove useful to this project. Carbonated water will be seen as an experimental condition that is expected to benefit radish seed growth.

Okumura, T., Muramoto, Y., & Shimizu, N. (2012). Influence of DC electric field on growth of daikon radish (Raphanus sativus). Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, IEEE Transactions on, 19(6), 2237-2241.

In this experiment, the researchers focused on the daikon radish.  For their experimental group, they applied a DC electric field of 2.5 kV/m for three hours a day.  They were both given the same amount of distilled water and sunlight each day. After 7 days of growth, the samples were harvested. The seed germination percentage was counted, and the seeds were weighed. The length of the sprout was also measured. The results suggested that the germination rate is improved by a DC electric field. Even when using older seeds, the DC electric field was able to recover the function of seed germination in some seeds. They also found that there was a 99.99% reliability that the application of a DC electric field was able to increase the length of the daikon radish as well as increase the weight of the radish. However, when water was removed from the radish plants, the plants from the group without the DC electric field had a higher mass.

This was an interesting article, and the main purpose for the experiment was to find a better way to grow crops in order to feed the world’s growing population. Unfortunately, I don’t think this article will be particularly useful in our research, as it requires the use of a DC electric field, which can be dangerous and requires equipment that we don’t have.

Van Hooijdonk, M.  1999. “Effects of salinity on growth, water use, and nutrient use in radish (Raphanus sativus L)”. Plant and Soil. 215: 57-64.

This research looked at the salinity levels in radish seeds and used that to determine the seed growth. These researchers used five soil salinity levels which were 1,2,4,9 and 13 dS m^-1. The salinity was varied by changing the concentration of all macro nutrients evenly. When making the electrical current higher the amount of nutrients taken in was increased too.  The optimal nutrient intake was shown at 4 dS m^-1. Low salinity levels showed limited nutrient intake and high salinity levels showed limited plant growth. Plant growth ended up being the best at 2-4 dSm^-1.

While conducting our own research we have to have these results in mind. We are testing different water types and it is extremely important to keep salinity in mind. We are able to see which type of salinity these seeds would thrive in the most.

Group: Ann-Renee Rubia, Samah Islam, and Manuel Sojan

Research Question

Does household income have an effect on the scores of the old and new SAT?

Premise

One of the reasons the new SAT was introduced in March 2016 was to introduce more equity for students of diverse economic backgrounds/household incomes.  Many previous studies have indicated that there was a positive correlation between preparedness for the SAT and household income, due to paid SAT coaching, access to more resources, and better funded schools.  We wanted to test if the new SAT is in fact more accommodating for students of various socioeconomic statuses.  We will achieve this by anonymously surveying freshman students at CCNY, who have taken the new SAT and the old SAT, and asking what their household income is, and compare their household income to the scores of their old and new SAT scores.  

Citations

Reed, B. (2015, June 3). The New SAT: Everything You Need to Know. Retrieved October 01,  2017, from http://time.com/3905719/the-new-sat/

From this article we find the reason for why the SAT has changed and that is to put people who are at more disadvantageous station in their lives at equal standing in terms of test taking with others. College board has paired up with Khan Academy to provide tutoring for students free of charge whereas in the past with the “Old SAT” students falling into certain brackets of income could hardly afford such fees for tutoring. The original five answer choice has shortened to only four, there are less breaks between sections, and the exam has become more reading heavy, however the exam may not easier it strives to be “fairer.”

12. Z. (2014, October 7). SAT Scores and Income Inequality: How Wealthier Kids Rank Higher . Retrieved October 1, 2017, from https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2015/14-981/14-981-12.pdf

According to this article, students with a higher family income (not necessarily wealthy or rich) outscore students who have a smaller sum of money brought into their homespace. One might think the household earning increases students test scores because of their ability to afford tutoring and SAT prep, however research finds that such prep only increases students scores in math and reading sections by a dozen points at max.

Dixon-Román, Ezekiel J., et al. “Race, Poverty and SAT Scores: Modeling the Influences of Family Income on Black and White High School Students’ SAT Performance.” Teachers College Record, vol. 115, no. 4, Apr. 2013, pp. 1-33. EBSCOhost,

ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=87024881&site=ehost-live.

One person interviewed in this article claimed that income level didn’t affect the student’s performance on their exams, rather their social and emotional state. From that one would assume she expected that students in lower brackets of income were less stable. In this article as one reads further, we find that the researchers in this article look into reasons for why students with less income would be performing at a lower level than their wealthier counterparts. They blame it on nutrition, or lack of drive, or lack of health insurance. Though this is a cause for why students in a lower income bracket may have a more “unstable” emotional or social state it is not cause for providing evidence for why lower income has a direct linkage to SAT performance. Health insurance for instance, as brought up in the article, really shouldn’t be in an article focusing on SAT scores. For that, this article is not one that should be considered.

Hoover, E. (2016, March 18). What students said right after taking the new SAT. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 62(27), A6. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=cuny_ccny&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA448900503&asid=29a16508705ea8846cd4c564441e6cb7

In this article, Hoover gathered the opinions of the new SAT from high school students on social media.  Many of the students who tweeted their opinions of the new SAT lamented over the difficulty of the test.  Surveys conducted by Kaplan Test Prep showed that 59% of the students who were surveyed felt that the test had straightforward questions, 58% felt that the test was lengthy and “tiring”, and 56% thought that the exam “somewhat” tested for what was taught in high school.  Further surveying by the College Board revealed that students preferred the new SAT to the old SAT in a 6:1 ratio.  Additionally, four out of five students felt that the vocabulary introduced in the new SAT, which the College Board said would be more practical or useful in the future was indeed so, in comparison to the one in two students who thought that the old SAT vocabulary would be useful.

Hoover, E. (2014, March 14). Plans for New SAT Spark Mixed Reviews. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 60(26). Retrieved from

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=cuny_ccny&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA364442620&asid=b86279ecd60f0e085cccac11d0e8dbfe

This article, taken from the Chronicle of Higher Education, focused on identifying and analyzing the necessity of the revisions of the new SAT (introduced in 2016), from the point of view of educators.  Some of the major changes introduced in the new SAT were more “evidence-based” reading and writing passages (requiring students to finding supporting evidence for their claims/answers to the exam questions), a more diverse range of mathematical subjects, and an optional essay.  One criticism/question about the new SAT that was brought up in this article was if the new SAT is any better of an indicator towards success in college, in comparison to the old SAT.  This criticism was especially directed towards the essay portion of the essay.  David Coleman, the president of the College Board, admits that the essay portion of the SAT does not augment the predictive validity of the test.  The essay portion of the test is additionally criticized because it may deter some students from applying to certain schools, which may require this portion of the SAT.  Altogether, the new SAT has had many mixed reviews from many educators, admission officers, and directors of colleges.  

Lin, Y., Clough, P. J., Welch, J., & Papageorgiou, K. A. (2017). Individual differences in mental toughness associate with academic performance and income. Personality and Individual Differences, 113, 178+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=cuny_ccny&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA489037234&asid=263d8fac0693e9e5e42949aaf07e2a26

Mental toughness has to do with an individual’s ability to handle stressful or challenging situations, similar to resilience or persistence.  Mental toughness is usually conceptualized or defined by the 4 C’s: the levels of an individual’s commitment, challenge, control and confidence.  In this study/experiment, it was hypothesized that income and mental toughness would be positively correlated.  This can be applied to the SAT because it is often a stressful “rite of passage” for high school students as they approach higher levels of education.  It was found in this study that there is a significant, positive correlation between income and mental toughness. The challenge in applying this information to our study/experiment is that it evaluated the income of people who were already in the workforce, not family income (which our study is testing for).  

Graham, LaConda T., “Factors that Impact Performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) between Urban High School Seniors and their Parents.” (2008). Counselor Education Master’s Theses. Paper 41.

http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=edc_theses

This study sought to investigate the several factors that affected the scores of urban high school seniors taking the (old) SAT. In particular, the research focused on the effect of parents’ education on SAT scores, and why urban high schoolers performed worse academically and on the SAT compared to their suburban counterparts. In the U.S., urban students score lower on SATs than their suburban counterparts, according to numerous research. The study was conducted by using a survey that asked high school seniors about their parents’ educational level as well as about their test preparation. The results showed that 59 percent of the parents in urban areas in the northeast region lacked the education—only 13 percent have a college degree—and knowledge needed to inform their children about the SAT exam. Thus, logically, it makes sense as to why students form urban high schools performed worse than those from suburban areas, which are much more educated. While this study focused more on the parents’ education level, education and income level are related, because usually a more educated household tend to have a higher income. This piece of information is vital to our own study. The source is from the College at Brockport and is a Master’s thesis, so it is a credible and valuable source.

1. R. Sackett, N. R. Kuncel, A. S. Beatty, J. L. Rigdon, W. Shen, T. B. Kiger. The Role of Socioeconomic Status in SAT-Grade Relationships and in College Admissions Decisions. Psychological Science, 2012

This peer-reviewed study, from the University of Minnesota, sought to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic status, high school grades, college admissions and college freshman GPA. The data sets were obtained from Collegeboard and from the University of California. One of the key findings was that socioeconomic status and SAT scores are positively correlated, and the researchers noted that this could be because a higher income means a student has better access to SAT coaching and other educational programs. This finding from the study is useful to our research investigation. However, another finding of this study is in contrast with the popular notion that SAT scores aren’t good predictors of academic performance in college. While this finding does not necessarily apply to our research question, it is nevertheless a surprising revelation.

by Tayba Aziz, Emilia Decaudin, and Katlyn Palmatier

Did the results of the 2016 General Election affect voter turnout in the 2017 Primary Election in NYC?

Bellafante, G. (2015, December 11). Mobilizing Voters in New York’s Housing Projects. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/nyregion/mobilizing-voters-in-new-yorks-housing-projects.html

This article focuses on income and housing in Queens and compares it to voter turnout. Those with lower income, especially if they reside in public housing, are less likely they are to vote. Bellafante suspects that this is because they have little faith that their concerns will be listened to. This article will serve useful when analyzing why people choose to or not to vote.

BOE – Election Results Summary. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2017, from http://vote.nyc.ny.us/html/results/results.shtml

This site shows official data for voter turnout and election results in New York City. It includes information for primaries and general elections, such as how many voters voted for each candidate including write-in candidates. This data will be used to compare New York City mayoral Democratic primary statistics from 2017 to other years that directly follow presidential elections.

Cohn, N. (2017, April 5). Democrats Are Bad at Midterm Turnout. That Seems Ready to Change. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/upshot/democrats-are-bad-at-midterm-turnout-that-seems-ready-to-change.html

This article is a prediction that after the 2016 General Election, more democrats nationwide will take an active role in politics and vote during primary elections. The data presented suggests that voter turnout is higher within a party if they do not hold the White House.

Davenport, T. (2010). Public Accountability and Political Participation: Effects of a Face-to-Face Feedback Intervention on Voter Turnout of Public Housing Residents. Political Behavior, 32(3), 337–368. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9109-x

In this article, the author conducts an experiment to determine in social pressure can motivate infrequent voters to vote in an unimportant/uninteresting election, by comparing the effects of traditional canvassing and canvassing that uses individual voter histories and “feedback intervention” to make voters feel pressured to vote, in public housing projects.

Gould, R. H. and S. (n.d.). Americans beat one voter turnout record — here’s how 2016 compares with past elections. Retrieved October 11, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-voter-turnout-records-history-obama-clinton-2016-11

In this article, the authors discuss voter turnout in 2016 and 2008 presidential elections compared to other years. They point out out that in 2016, more people voted in the Senate races than in the presidential race in 14 states.

Highton, B. (2000). Residential Mobility, Community Mobility, and Electoral Participation. Political Behavior, 22(2), 109–120.

This article aims to determine what causes Americans who move often to vote less than those who stay put. The author hypothesizes that this lower turnout is caused by a lack of re-registration by those moving as well as by movers’ weaker connection to the local community. They concluded that the loss of social ties is far less important to whether one votes or not as the need to reregister does, as there is a negligible difference in turnout between those who moved within their communities, and those who moved outside their communities.

Stockemer, D. (2017). Electoral Participation: How to Measure Voter Turnout? Social Indicators Research, 133(3), 943–962. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1410-6

The author presents two methods to measure voter turnout. The first method calculates voter turnout as the percentage of registered voters who actually voted and the second method calculates voter turnout as the percentage of the voting age population who actually voted.

Stockemer, D. (2017). What Affects Voter Turnout? A Review Article/Meta-Analysis of Aggregate Research. Government and Opposition, 52(4), 698–722. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2016.30

The author conducts a meta-analysis of a wide range of studies on voter turnout to determine which factors play the most important roles in affecting turnout levels. He found that compulsory voting, the election being seen as important, and the county it is held in being small all help to improve voter turnout. He also found that the type of electoral system, the number of parties, development, income inequalities, and electoral closeness have an inconclusive link to voter turnout.

Vallbé, J.-J., & Magre Ferran, J. (2017). The Road Not Taken. Effects of residential mobility on local electoral turnout. Political Geography, 60, 86–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.04.010

In this article, the authors analyze the effects of residential mobility and city size in voter turnout. They find that both ease of mobility and smaller cities are conducive to higher voter turnout, and that in larger cities, reduced mobility has a more profound negative effect on turnout than in smaller cities.

Research Question: Do study habits that affect sleep levels influence test scores of City College students?

Group Members: Zainab Baig, Katie Johnson, Viktoriya Markova, Rebecca Regine

Citations:

Estes, Thomas H., and Herbert C. Richards. “Habits of Study and Test Performance.” Journal of Reading Behavior, vol. 17, no. 1, 1985, pp. 1–13., doi:10.1080/10862968509547527.

• Thomas H. Estes has contributed to several other research experiments that are published in the Journal of Reading Behavior. He is professor emeritus of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Currently, he serves as president of Dynamic Literacy, a company specializing in vocabulary development products based in Latin and Greek underpinnings of academic English. He received his PhD in reading education from Syracuse University. Dr. Estes taught in the McGuffey Reading Center of the Curry School and in the Curriculum, Learning, and Teaching program for 31 years. There is no much information on Herbert C. Richards besides the fact that he associated with the University of Virginia and has conducted several other similar studies on learning and how it affects different categories of students. The study examined three different aspects including how test performance is related to inquisitiveness, compulsivity related to test performance of individual students compared to all the others, and the relation between distractibility and test performance. The study was administered to 418 college students and 124 seventh and tenth graders. The students were asked several questions and required to answer how often they experienced the exemplified situation. The resulted stated that test performance was monotonically related to study behavior. The inquisitiveness factor, the desire for knowledge, played a major role in academic performance. However, the researchers state that there are external factors that could have affected the academic performance. There seems to remain some relationship between the three factors tested, compulsivity, inquisitiveness, and distractibility, on test performance, but the factors are limiting and allow for ambiguity.

Flueckiger, L., Lieb, R., Meyer, A. H., & Mata, J. (2014). How Health Behaviors Relate to Academic Performance via Affect: An Intensive Longitudinal Study. Plos ONE, 9(10), 1-10. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0111080

• The study follows 72 first year undergraduate students for a period of 32 consecutive days to examine how sleep and physical activity relate to their academic performance during an examination period. The students answered online questionnaires on their sleep quality, physical activity, learning goal achievement, and examination grades. The study found that, while physical activity had no effect on learning goal achievement and examination grades, better sleep quality predicted better learning goal achievement. This study supports our prediction that there is a relationship between sleep and academic achievement.

Gillen-O’Neel, C., Huynh, V. W. and Fuligni, A. J. (2013), To Study or to Sleep? The Academic

Costs of Extra Studying at the Expense of Sleep. Child Development, 84: 133–142.

• The study is conducted by Cari Gillen-O’Neel from the Department of Psychology at the University of Los Angeles. She is currently working at the University of Macalester as an assistant professor in developmental psychology. O’Neel examines the social and educational implications of children’s identities, in relation to demographic and institutional groups. She has conducted several research studies relating to child development and how children are affected by others in institutional settings. In the study, “To Study or to Sleep? The Academic Costs of Extra Studying at the Expense of Sleep,” O’Neel and several other members of her research team constructed an experiment to observe the association between sleep time and academic performance. There were 535 participants in the study, which consisted of students from 9th, 10th, and 12th grade. For 14 days, they required the students to compose journal entries stating the amount of hours he or she slept, study habits, and sleep schedule. They continued to monitor the students throughout the preceding grade levels and realized how students continued to sacrifice sleep for study time. This habit increased throughout the grade levels causing students to continuously struggle with academic problems in the classroom.

Howard, J. (2014, June 22). Scientists Link A Good Night’s Sleep To Higher Test Scores. Huffington Post. Retrieved October 3, 2017, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/22/sleep-hours-exam-performance_n_5516643.html

• Researchers from Ghent and KU Leuven Universities, located in Belgium, conducted a study to examine students and their sleep habits during stressful exam times. This study is a credible source because it is conducted within a university, ensuring academic integrity. They surveyed exactly 621 first-year students and concluded that students that had overall more hours of sleep performed better on their exams. For example, students that slept for seven hours in a night had a 10% higher exam score than those students that got less hours of sleep. One of the researchers, Dr. Baert, concluded that “new knowledge is integrated into our existing knowledge base while we sleep” and this is essentially why more hours of sleep leads to higher test scores. -Zainab

Kerdijk, W., Cohen-Schotanus, J., Mulder, B. F., Muntinghe, F. H., & Tio, R. A. (2015). Cumulative versus end-of-course assessment: effects on self-study time and test performance. Medical Education, 49(7), 709-716

• In this article, researchers investigated whether the study habits of students would differ if they were given one final exam or three cumulative tests throughout the semester. Many college students wait until the week of the test to begin studying and sometimes study only the day before. This study encouraged students in the cumulative testing group to practice spaced out studying as they were being tested on the same material multiple times. At the end of each week, each student had to report how many hours they spent studying class material. The researchers found that the students in the cumulative testing group studied significantly more than the individuals who only had a final exam. The participants in the group with one exam studied seven more hours on the week of the final exam. However, there were no significant test score differences overall between the groups. This is important to our study because these two groups used different methods of studying and there was no difference between their scores. This shows that we may find that people who lose sleep by cramming may have the same test scores as people who space out their studying and have a good night’s rest before an exam.

McCall, W. (2004, January 21). Study: More Sleep, Sharper Brain. ABCNews. Retrieved October 3, 2017, from abcnews.go.com

• This article is a credible source because it is presented through the means of a well-known news source, ensuring that the information given is accurate. The study that is discussed in this article is also referring to a German study at the University of Luebeck. Researchers concluded that participants that got eight hours of sleep were three times more likely to solve a hidden solution to a math problem than participants who were sleep deprived. Jan Born, the researcher that led the study, concluded that the findings of this study “support biochemical studies of the brain that indicate memories are restructured before they are stored.” This coincides with our research proposal and confirms that more hours of sleep aids the brain in storing and processing information, which in turn, results in higher  test scores among students that got more sleep than students that are sleep deprived. -Zainab

Patrick, Y., Lee, A., Raha, O., Pillai, K., Gupta, S., Sethi, S., & Moss, J. (2017). Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive and physical performance in university students. Sleep & Biological Rhythms, 15(3), 217-225.

• Researchers conducted a study consisting of 557 psychology students to determine the relationship between sleep quality and academic performance. Each student took a demographic survey, the Goldberg Depression Inventory and lastly, the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index. The investigators screened out students who were depressed or displayed many depressive symptoms and so only 468 subjects remained. With the scores, the investigators analyzed the data using statistical analyses. The researchers found that there was a correlation between low scores of sleep quality and a student’s’ GPA. This is important to our research study because many college students are chronically sleep deprived as they stay up late to study or complete assignments. Although this study addressed a student’s overall GPA, it is possible that students who get less sleep the night before an exam will do worse than those who get a reasonable amount.

Thacher, P. V. (2008). University Students and the “All Nighter”: Correlates and Patterns of Students’ Engagement in a Single Night of Total Sleep Deprivation. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 6(1), 16-31. doi:10.1080/15402000701796114

• One of the most common methods of studying for students both in college and in high school is staying awake the night before and studying the entire time. This method of pulling an all nighter and cramming was examined in this study. 120 undergraduate students self-reported their sleeping patterns and whether or not they engage in one or more single nights of total sleep deprivation (SN-TSD). The researchers examined these factors, as well as the student’s’ GPA which they obtained from the university registrar. They found that engaging in a SN-TSD resulted in later sleep times overall as well as poorer academic achievement as indicated by GPA. This supports the notion that study habits that affect sleep levels influence academic achievement, which ties into our research question.