The Pivot to COVID Project ultimately began when Dr. Cox and Dr. Murakami saw the necessity of researching a contemporary issue: specifically, the coronavirus pandemic. We began as a group of 4 student researchers highly interested in the effects of the coronavirus on human health and wellbeing but eventually split off into two sub-groups, focusing on the immunology portion of the virus and the sociological effects, a project designed by us. Dr. Gentile, one of the heads of the SSRP(Summer Science Research Program), talked to us about the Independent School Interschool Study, a collective that is aiming to pursue scientific research in a virtual format and collect data from NYC students regarding their opinions on the pandemic. Utilizing the Interschool Study as our starting point, we came up with the idea of creating and distributing a Pilot Survey. The study aims to gather information regarding student compliance with CDC and other organization guidelines in order to provide school administrators with information that will aid in the creation of policies.
In the process of creating our Pilot survey, we’ve sorted through various topics of interest–including topics like mental health and wellbeing, social habits, and coping methods–we decided that high school students’ compliance with CDC and other organization recommendations would be the most beneficial to school administrations in the upcoming school year. This was out of a need to have a survey that had simple, concise, and straightforward questions that weren’t too probing or too subjective–issues that came up when brainstorming questions on mental health and social habits, specifically in terms of substance use. The process of choosing a topic and brainstorming our experimental questions, hypotheses, and data collection methods, was greatly aided by the feedback we gathered from our Lisman Lab peers and teachers; Dr. Nicholson-Flynn, former head of the Upper School at Riverdale Country School and science teacher; and Dr. Joiner, psychologist and science research program coordinator at the Dalton School. They gave us informative advice that helped us hone in on a specific topic, allowing us to maximize the effectiveness of the survey. They also provided us with tips to produce relatively unbiased results and voiced potential administrative and legal concerns that we’ve addressed and incorporated into the creation of our survey. The feedback we received was invaluable and the various perspectives of the people we listened to greatly reflected in their influence on the survey and the changes we’ve made. In the remaining days of our Lisman Lab work, we hope to create a final product that is well thought out, and begin to distribute it through the network of independent school students.
As of right now, we are putting our time and resources into drafting our first version of the pilot survey. In our remaining days of the Lisman Lab, we are aiming to distribute a simple survey to the network of NYC Independent schools. We anticipate that with all the care we have put towards creating it, we will receive data that will inform schools as we head into the new year, and contribute to the greater database of COVID-19 research.
Natalie and Karlo
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