Research Design

Elaine Luo

Data Science Fellow 2024-2025
Graduate School of Education

Elaine (Hua) Luo is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Education, School Psychology PhD program. Her research interests focus on adolescents’ identity development and well-being under the transactional influence of entities in their socio-ecological systems. In her research, Elaine has utilized not only quantitative but also qualitative and mixed methods to study her research topics of interest. Before coming to Berkeley, Elaine earned her Master’s in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard Graduate School of Education and her Bachelor of Art in Education Sciences from...

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Fundamentals

October 9, 2023, 9:00am
Are you starting a research project at UC Berkeley that involves human subjects? If so, one of the first steps you will need to take is getting IRB approval.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Fundamentals

February 7, 2023, 10:00am
Are you starting a research project at UC Berkeley that involves human subjects? If so, one of the first steps you will need to take is getting IRB approval.

Institutional Review Boards (IRB) Fundamentals

March 17, 2022, 3:00pm
Are you starting a research project at UC Berkeley that involves human subjects? If so, one of the first steps you will need to take is getting IRB approval.

Survey Fundamentals

April 11, 2024, 3:00pm
This two-hour workshop offers a comprehensive introduction to designing and conducting survey studies. Tailored for beginners, it provides clear, step-by-step guidance complemented by concise examples, practical considerations, and useful support materials. Participants will learn the entire process, from formulating a research question to creating, administering, and analyzing surveys, as well as interpreting results and communicating their findings.

Democratizing Our Data

August 26, 2021, 10:00am
There is enormous interest in building a better understanding of how evidence and data can inform policy. New possibilities have opened up to enable data to be shared and used across states and agencies. One is a technical approach – the Administrative Data Research Facility – which provides a secure environment within which education, training, and workforce data can be shared across agencies and states. The other is human – the Applied Data Analytics training program – which trains government agency staff how to combine and use the data to serve their agency missions. Over 650 participants from over 150 agencies have participated and produced new products and new networks in the process. This presentation discusses the approach sponsored by the California Department of Social Services, joint with the Department of Education and the Economic Development Department. The D-Lab worked with the Coleridge Initiative to successfully combine the two approaches. The presentation will also address the broader vision of how approaches like this can serve to democratize data for the United States.

Survey Fundamentals

February 21, 2024, 1:00pm
This two-hour workshop offers a comprehensive introduction to designing and conducting survey studies. Tailored for beginners, it provides clear, step-by-step guidance complemented by concise examples, practical considerations, and useful support materials. Participants will learn the entire process, from formulating a research question to creating, administering, and analyzing surveys, as well as interpreting results and communicating their findings.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Fundamentals

February 16, 2024, 9:00am
Are you starting a research project at UC Berkeley that involves human subjects? If so, one of the first steps you will need to take is getting IRB approval.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Fundamentals

November 7, 2022, 12:00pm
Are you starting a research project at UC Berkeley that involves human subjects? If so, one of the first steps you will need to take is getting IRB approval.

Sand Mining - Plugging a Critical Data Gap

May 14, 2024
Suraj Nair
by Suraj Nair. Excessive sand mining is causing a global ecological crisis. In this blog post, I present why sand mining is one of the most pressing challenges facing the planet, and why persistent data gaps hinder accountability and monitoring. I also discuss an ongoing research project of mine where we combine freely available satellite imagery and machine learning models to build open-source sand mine detection tools that can plug some of these data gaps.