The Basics of Conducting Empirical Research to Shape Pedagogy or Promote Policy Change

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

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This session is designed to demystify empirical research and to offer a guide to conducting such work including developing study questions, attracting grant funding, working with experts, shepherding a project through the Institutional Review Board, and using data to generate scholarship, analyze pedagogy and affect law change. The presenters will discuss their experience with empirical work in various contexts including infusing externship scholarship with a data-based analytical approach, studying a community court program, and determining rates of housing discrimination in the rental market. Even those of us with no experience in empirical research and statistics can undertake a data-driven study that can add to the great well of knowledge about program/course design, what we teach, and how we teach. The presenters will discuss how to maximize the impact of the work through scholarship and law change activities.