Daniel J. O’Keefe
Professor
Department of Communication Studies
Northwestern University
RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS
My research is focused on
synthetic research concerning persuasion, and in particular on meta-analytic reviews
of persuasion effects research. (For a more detailed statement of my
research interests, click here.)
Meta-analytic methods are quantitative methods for summarizing a set of
existing studies relevant to some specific research question--questions such as
“what is the relative persuasive effectiveness of one-sided and two-sided
messages?” or “what factors influence the effectiveness of the door-in-the-face
influence strategy?”
Briefly expressed, conducting a
meta-analytic review involves identifying and retrieving relevant research
studies (with lots of library detective work), analyzing each individual study
(extracting relevant statistical information, classifying the study into categories
of interest), computing meta-analytic statistics over the collection of studies
(meta-analyzing the set of studies), and preparing the results for presentation
(e.g., in a publication).
Meta-analytic research offers many
opportunities for collaborative work involving both undergraduate and graduate
students. I have several current meta-analytic projects at various stages
of development, and it can be easy for a student to join a project that suits
the student’s interests and background. If you’re interested in learning
more, get in touch with me. The easiest and most dependable way is email:
d-okeefe@northwestern.edu.
Daniel J. O’Keefe home page
Department
of Communication Studies
School of Communication
Northwestern University