PLO 10. Contributing to the Advancement of the Field Through Research Design

Course: LIBR 507: Methods of Research and Evaluation in Information Organizations

Artifact: LIBR 507 Research Protocol Design (group project)

My role: Group member; contributed especially to the Ethical Considerations section, the Approach to Data Analysis, and the development of the interview questions. The protocol’s team contribution table identifies these components as part of my work. 

This artifact reflects my achievement in PLO 10: contributing to the advancement of the field through informed practice, service, and/or research. Our group designed a research protocol to evaluate how participation in library makerspace programming might influence the development of teens’ social skills, including teamwork, assertiveness, leadership, self-regulation, and empathy. What makes this artifact especially meaningful is that it was not simply a classroom exercise in method selection. It was an attempt to design a credible, ethically grounded, and practically useful study that could inform future library programming and further research in an underexplored area of practice. In that sense, it aligns strongly with PLO 10 because it positions research as a way to strengthen the field’s understanding of what libraries can do and how their impact can be studied.

A major strength of this project was its full research structure. We developed a focused research question, justified the use of semi-structured interviews over surveys, explained the limits of convenience sampling, designed informed consent and debriefing materials, and proposed a qualitative content analysis process supported by NVivo. My own contributions deepened my understanding of how responsible library research must be built not only around curiosity, but also around protection, clarity, and methodological rigor. Writing the ethical considerations section required me to think carefully about minors as participants, informed consent from both teens and guardians, confidentiality, secure storage, transcription practices, and the possibility of emotional distress during interviews. Working on the data analysis plan also helped me think more systematically about how qualitative evidence becomes meaningful findings through coding, categorization, and theme development.

This artifact is important to my professional development because it showed me that contributing to the field does not always mean publishing final results. It can also mean designing thoughtful research infrastructure: asking a worthwhile question, building an ethical and workable protocol, and creating a study that others could potentially implement or build upon. I assess this artifact as strong evidence of my development in PLO 10 because it demonstrates my ability to help shape research that is both practically relevant and methodologically defensible. At the same time, I would like to deepen this capacity by participating in future projects that move beyond protocol design into data collection, analysis, and dissemination. Self-assessment rubric score

Overall score: 4.5/5

Connection to PLO: 5/5Clarity of role: 4.5/5Depth of reflection: 4.5/5Relevance to career direction: 4.5/5Readiness for professional application: 4/5

Short rationale for score:This artifact strongly demonstrates my ability to contribute to the field through research planning and ethical, methodologically grounded protocol design. It is slightly lower on readiness for application only because the project stopped at the protocol stage rather than continuing into full implementation.

Copyright and permissions note

This artifact was developed collaboratively as a course project in LIBR 507 by Jacy Cho, Mitchel Wrayton, and Mingzhe Xue. It is included in the portfolio for educational and reflective purposes with attribution to all contributors. Copyright in the group-created project content is shared among the student creators unless otherwise specified. Any reproduced course materials, sample forms, or cited third-party sources remain the property of their original rights holders and should be used only in ways consistent with citation, educational fair dealing, or permission requirements.