By Solveig Felbo, Junior Researcher
I started as a junior researcher at the ETHOS lab four months ago. I’ve studied gender inclusivity in software for a 7,5 ECTS research project. I’ve done this through a systematic literature review. My project examines (1) What is gender-inclusive software? (2) How to develop gender-inclusive software? and (3) What are the advantages of offering gender-inclusive software?
I wish somebody had given me some advice beforehand, so here I present three recommendations based on my journey so far targeting other students starting their research journey in a new field of research.
Recommendation 1: Take your time finding a topic you’re interested in
First and foremost, don’t jump at the first topic you encounter. Personally, I knew I wanted to prepare for my thesis by doing a research project, but I struggled to find an interesting topic even using my first exam attempt due to a lack of match with my first supervisor and the topic. If I had started earlier looking for topics and a supervisor, that probably wouldn’t have happened.
When looking for supervisors I originally only considered the ones, I had as teachers, limiting myself unnecessarily. I recommend starting with the topic and then finding a matching supervisor afterwards.
Since I have a background in and I’m passionate about entrepreneurship, I at some point found out that I wanted to study inclusivity in tech entrepreneurship, since it’s a topic where I know I’m capable. That led me down a path of gender inclusivity and in the end gender-inclusive software. I found the topic resonated with me since I wanted to create inclusive software at my old workplace, but found it difficult where to start. I ended up with an exciting topic, which was new to me, and even though that has brought challenges, it’s my experience that passion weighs more than experience when it comes to putting in the necessary hours.
Recommendation 2: Join ETHOS – especially if you’re researching by yourself
I believe one of the key factors to look for in a research lab is an interdisciplinary inclusive lab environment. Here I can highly recommend ETHOS.
The biweekly junior researcher meeting in ETHOS fosters peer learning and collaborative problem-solving. You get valuable feedback from the other students on your research, but it’s also beneficial to follow the other’s research and how they handle the academic and personal struggles they face in their projects.
I’m doing my literature review alone. Having biweekly meetings with the other junior researchers has been great since I’ve gotten extra feedback on my research. My thoughts before joining were that I could use it to set extra deadlines for myself and get extra supervision, but the value has been greater since I’ve learned new theories and have had my fundamental decisions discussed. The biggest gain for me from the junior researcher meetings was the others challenging me on why I looked at gender alone. That let me learn more about intersectionality and include the topic in my research, broadening my horizons and improving my research. Having this discussion with other students instead of my supervisor gave me a space to be more vulnerable. It was also inspiring following the other students’ research journey, letting me learn about toxic subcultures, AI friendships, music interaction, and discrimination in dating apps as well as learning about their academic research approaches like digital ethnography.
On top of the biweekly junior researcher gatherings, we’ve been privileged enough to also gain feedback from senior researchers. At ETHOS we have two sessions per semester with senior researchers. One session is called Play Fair, where we prepare a playable interaction based on our research and a second session, where we make a presentation of what we’re doing and what we’d like feedback on. Both are valuable in their own way. One of the things that I got from those, that I couldn’t get from my usual supervision, was a group of researchers discussing my topic letting me hear different arguments and counterarguments from experts on the subject.
Recommendation 3: A literature review is a great entry point to a new field of research
A literature review allows you to familiarise yourself with existing research, theories and methodologies in your field. It makes it possible to identify research gaps, which you can use for your research moving forward and to formulate research questions for further study.
Originally I primarily asked myself how to create gender-inclusive software, but I quickly realised I didn’t know what defines it and the advantages it provides. I wanted to collaborate with a company on making their software more inclusive but didn’t have the necessary expertise. The literature review allowed me to gain more expertise on the topic systematically preparing me for an applied thesis by guiding me to leading research on the topic. It brought revelations I wouldn’t have had otherwise such as the lack of definitions, the physiological differences, and algorithmic constraints. I can, therefore, highly recommend starting a research journey by doing a literature review.
If you want to know more about the results of the literature review or read it, feel free to reach out to me at solveig@skapari.dk.