When responding to your classmates, offer suggestions for how they can address the challenges they have identified.

First peer below.

To summarize the current research, there have been correlations found between diet and cognition in young adults (Atak et al., 2023; Attuquayefio et al., 2016). However, both research groups explore these effects in a lab setting under a one-time set of tests. This is a great beginning in exploring how a young adult's diet and cognition are interwound, as this age-group has previously been overlooked (Buyuktuncer et al., 2018). What I saw when doing this preliminary research was that there was not only a shortage of research in young adult's diet and cognition in general, but also in exploring the more everyday, common applications of both variables. Thus, my research question is: How does habitual diet affect everyday cognitive functions in a variety of young adults, both currently and with changes over time? The correlating hypothesis is: Those with a habitual diet high in saturated fat and sugar have poorer everyday cognitive abilities, worsening with time if diet does not change, than those with a habitual diet of whole foods.

The major challenge I see and other researchers have seen is that self-report is not always reliable, especially for sensitive subjects. Unfortunately, Americans place a large emphasis on body-image and often deem it socially unacceptable to consume convenience foods, which tend to be high in fat and sugar, even if these are the most readily available foods for a majority of demographics. Fortunately, in this style of research, there will be no face-to-face interaction with an interviewer and completely anonymous. Any possible judgement is largely removed. This does not mean the limit is erased. The same can be said for evaluating cognition. While other researchers (Atak et al., 2023; Attuquayefio et al., 2016) had the benefit of evaluating cognitive abilities through objective testing, that is not possible with surveying. Surveying will rely on the participant's subjective perception of their own cognitive abilities. This does present a new perspective, however, as questions will ask participants to report on more applicable, everyday cognitive tasks such as focusing at work or remembering events instead of contrived lab tests. I have attempted to build the benefit of subjective reporting into my research question, yet I am open to suggestions on making these reports more reliable.

One way to remedy the challenge of subjective reporting is to use neutral language, not associating foods or cognitive capabilities with being "good" or "bad". For example, in asking participants about their everyday diet, I would not want to label a high-sugar, high-fat diet with being "unhealthy" as it may steer participants away from being as truthful as possible. Instead, asking participants to report simply on the foods they consume without descriptors like "unhealthy", "healthy", "good", "bad" and so on will assist in eliminating bias.

Secondly, there is the challenge of confounding variables. This is a challenge I am very open to hearing suggestions on, as I still have not decided what the best way to control for them is. In other cited research, researchers were able to control for BMI, age, gender, medical history and relationships to food (Atak et al., 2023; Attuquayefio et al., 2016). While I want a large variety of participants, I understand that people living with ADHD, autism, people who have a history of disordered eating, and other factors may not see changes in cognitive abilities due to dietary changes. The relationship cognition has with environment is very complex. I feel it is unethical for me to ask participants to report such conditions and to exclude them based upon these factors. Again, I am lost in remedying this and am completely open to suggestion.

Second peer below.

Research Question

The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the traditional workplace and forced many companies to explore alternative work options. Remote work is a desired option for many workers for its flexibility, increased autonomy, and lower commute times (Yang, 2023). With an increase in flexibility, many have found that they can manage work and home tasks throughout their traditional workday. Although this flexibility is attractive to many, it may blur the balance between work and home life. Through previous research, it has been shown that working from home has given participants increased feelings of irritability, decreased mood, decreased performance and "role blurring" (Stasiuk-Piekarska, 2021). Role blurring may be more significant for women who have higher demands while at home and may be harder for women to create a healthy work-life boundary while working remotely. When thinking about "creating an" equitable workplace for women, what impacts does remote work have on the mental well-being of women? How does the flexible workday model impact work-life balance and subjective well-being in women? Furthermore, do women who report more demands from home have lower levels of well-being when working from home?

Hypothesis

Women working remotely will experience a decreased sense of work-life balance and subjective well-being when home life demands are high.

Challenges to Collecting Data

This course only allows research participants to be PSY 510 and PSY 520 students. Although these are graduate classes, there may be an insufficient number of participants that work from home compared to those who work in a traditional work setting.

A way to potentially increase data collection from those working at home would be to modify this criteria to those who are currently working from home and those who have worked from home in the past. This may decrease the validity of the results but would potentially expand the amount of participants.

While editing my research proposal, I am also considering adding a second hypothesis that compares women's sense of work-life balance and subjective well-being to mens sense of work-life balance and subjective well-being when working from home.