Research Symposium

BIO

Bailey Poston is a second-year undergraduate student majoring in Biochemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences. She plans to earn her Bachelor of Science degree from Florida State University and attend medical school post-graduation. Through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, Bailey conducted research under Erik Rawls, a researcher at Florida State University. With this project, they investigated dissemination science within learning disability research. Bailey hopes to utilize the knowledge gained from this research opportunity in future endeavors with science, research, and medicine.

Disseminating Methods For Research Innovations In Learning Disabilities And Reading Science

Abstract

The Learning Disabilities Research Centers Consortium—or LDRC—is a project that works to collect knowledge on learning disabilities and their effects on major learning milestones. There are many different topics to take into account when collecting this data; one approach focuses on the foundations of research already available about learning disabilities and how this research is being disseminated or received. So, what methods of research that are common in early childhood development innovations are being utilized for dissemination to effective groups? Researching this question, we sorted through the LDRC’s matrix of published papers and assigned scores based on impactful dissemination methods, affected populations, and the important contributions of each work. We used different Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Co-Pilot, that were available to use by our institution to help parse through the information, then went back and corrected or verified each input. The focus after this was to see what innovative work was in need of dissemination and how. While the study is still ongoing, the analysis of the literature has shown that research findings can be organized into things like graphics, web-posts, presentations, etc. Beyond the current methods of dissemination present within scientific fields, further analysis is needed to build methods to engage groups outside of research fields. Once completed, these findings can fill in unknowns about preferred methods for researchers in their fields and how different methods reach audiences. This can shape recommendations for promoting new works or teaching specific groups about new findings.

Keywords: Dissemination, Learning Disabilities, Reading Research