Oral Defense Questions and Answers

Alicia Steiman

After you chose your research question/project goal, which information guided your choice
of a research method/artistic process?
I used a combination of three academic journals to guide my research method. I knew that a
survey was going to be the most realistic method due to the resources I had available, and these
journals were helpful in constructing it. These journals each used some form of a survey where
people responded to statements about their division of household labor, quality of life, and views
on gender roles, so it gave me a better direction of how I should approach my research.

How is the method/process you chose aligned with the purpose of your research? Which
methods did you consider and reject?
The purpose of my research was to determine the effect of paternity leave on the division of
household labor for families in the Wake County area of North Carolina. My research method
aligned with this purpose because the survey I conducted gave me concrete information. It told
me what partner was doing each household task, so I was able to understand their division of
household labor. I was also able to gather respondents’ views about gender roles to see if that
had any effect on their openness to paternity leave. I considered doing a meta-analysis or some
sort of case study where I combined previous research to draw a conclusion about the effect of
paternity leave in North Carolina, but I decided against it because they did not provide enough
information that allowed me to feel confident enough in my conclusion. I would have needed to
make many assumptions if I did either of those methods, which would have weakened my
research.

What were the strategies you used to conduct a review of the literature or gather
information from the discipline-specific field? Why did you select those strategies? Which
strategies did you consider and reject?
My main strategy for gathering information from my field of research was to search for
academic journals from various databases. I used key words such as paternity leave, gender
roles, and division of household labor to find journals that would be helpful in giving me a better
understanding of the topic. I read through each of these and highlighted key information that I
planned to use in my review of the literature. For my review of the literature, I looked at the ones
in the peer reviewed academic journals I found and used it as a template. Many of them used
subheadings in the literature review, so that was something I implemented. Then, I divided up
the information I highlighted from the journals and categorized them into the subheadings. I
selected these strategies because I felt that it would give me the most reliable sources and would
build my credibility. I considered searching for information online and using news articles, but I
rejected this because I was not able to trust the information and there was too much to sift
through. I also considered using an expert advisor, but I was unable to find one and with my
research being so specific I did not think they would have been that helpful.

How did you evaluate the sources you collected to make sure they would be credible, valid,
and reliable? Which sources did you discard, and why?
All of the sources that I collected are peer-reviewed journals found from reliable databases, so I
was confident that they were all credible and valid sources. They all listed a number of academic
journals and previous studies in their references, which gave me extra assurance that they were
credible. I discarded any sources that did not provide a decent amount of information that I
would use for my research, and I also discarded any that were from a news article or other
unreliable online source. I discarded these because I did not feel that they were credible or
reliable. I was unsure of where the information came from and I could not find enough
information about the author to check their credibility.

What was one obstacle or challenge you encountered while performing the research, and
how did you address it?
One major challenge I encountered while performing my research was that my survey was not
getting enough responses. I addressed this challenge by contacting more people to take my
survey and having trusted adults send it to people they knew. I was able to gather enough
responses to validate my survey, but gaining more responses would not have been unwelcomed.

What was the most important source of information you found while conducting your
research, and why was it important?
The most important source of information that I found was a journal titled “European Men’s Use
of Parental Leave and Their Involvement in Child Care and Housework” by Gerardo Meil
because it gave me a clear understanding of the paternity leave policies in the Nordic countries
and how they effected the division of household labor as men become more involved. The results
from Meil’s study showed an increase of father’s involvement due to paternity leave, and I
became more interested on finding out if this was possible for the United States, specifically
North Carolina.

What was the fundamental argument/idea in your research? How does this argument/idea
relate to the primary purpose of your research?
The fundamental argument in my research was that paternity leave would foster greater gender
equality and allow for an equal division of household labor between parents. This relates to the
primary purpose of my research because I wanted to determine the effect of paternity leave in the
United States based on its success in the Nordic countries.

Which of the various perspectives you explored was the most difficult for you to
incorporate into your research inquiry, and why?
The perspective that was the most difficult for me to incorporate into my research inquiry was
the need to improve maternity leave rather than introduce paid paternity leave. This perspective
was the most difficult to incorporate because while it is important, it distracts from my central
argument. The United States does not currently guarantee paid maternity leave, so trying to
attack that problem within my research too would have been too much.

What criteria did you use to discriminate among the perspectives in order to reach a
conclusion?
Criteria that I used to discriminate among the perspectives in order to reach a conclusion include
whether or not it strengthens or distracts from my argument and if there was enough information
to use as evidence for my claims.
How might your conclusions/findings/product relate(s) to the current body of work in the
community or field?
My conclusion that paid paternity leave policies would equalize the division of household labor
for families in North Carolina relates to the current body of work in this field because it relates to
previous findings and proves that areas outside of the Nordic countries could benefit from paid
paternity leave policies.

What might be the real-world implications or consequences (influence on others’

behaviors, decision-making processes, or discoveries) related to your findings?
Real-world implications that are related to my findings is that some families have special
circumstances and do not have a typical division of household labor, so paternity leave would not
have a positive, if any, effect on that. Additionally, families may be more inclined to take both
maternity and paternity leave and this may change their family dynamic or have an unintentional
effect on their economics, division of household labor, or childcare responsibilities.

What additional questions emerged during your research? Based on your recent
experience, what advice would you give to other researchers who might choose to
investigate those questions?
Additional questions that emerged during my research include:
1. Would improving maternity leave policies in the United States have a more significant
effect than implementing paternity leave?
2. Are certain household tasks more likely to be divided evenly due to paternity leave than
others?
3. What is the effect of paternity leave on a child’s development?
4. What would be the effect of paid paternity leave policies on a countrywide level as
compared to a state-level?
I would advise other researchers to look at more studies that have already been done and to
gather more data to ensure that their results are reliable. It would also be beneficial for other
researchers to take more time to investigate these questions than I did with my research.

Which of your sources was the most influential, and in what way is that influence apparent
in your final conclusion or result?
The most influential source I used is “Gender, work and childbearing: couple analysis of work
adjustments after the transition to parenthood” by Gayle Kaufman and Eva Bernhardt because it
explored Swedish couples adjustments in their schedules to accommodate the needs of their
family. Their study found that paternity leave promoted gender equality and encouraged fathers
to make work adjustments, especially those with egalitarianism views. This influence is apparent
in my final conclusion because I made a similar conclusion about the effect of paternity leave. I
also looked at how views on gender roles would affect the success of paternity leave, and drew
my own conclusion on that.

In which specific part of your research process was your consultant most helpful, and how
was he or she most helpful? What did you learn from the consultant about your field of
research?
I did not have a consultant during the process of my research.
If you could revisit the research process, what would you do differently? Would you choose
a different area of inquiry, and if so, why? If you would choose the same research
question/project goal, what different methods or approaches would you use?
If I could revisit the research process, I would start my actual research sooner. I put together my
literature review and conducted my research later than I would have liked, and I think that was
detrimental to the process. Given more time, I could have gone deeper into the subject and done
more with the data I gathered. I would potentially choose a different area of inquiry because
although I enjoyed researching this topic and I learned a lot from it, I wish my research question
led to more tangible results. My research was based on many assumptions and the conclusion
was only a potential outcome, so I would have liked to research something that allows me to
draw a definite conclusion, and maybe even allows for a hands-on experiment as my research.

If you had three more months to work on this research question/project goal, what
additional research strategies would you put into practice?
If I had three more months to work on this research question, additional research strategies I
would put into practice include finding an expert advisor, looking at more peer-reviewed
journals, analyzing previous studies in my field, gathering more responses for my survey, doing
a more in depth analysis of my own research, and spending more time immersing myself in the
field of research in order to get a better understanding of the topic and its implications.

Think about the initial curiosity that led to your inquiry. What other areas of inquiry
might that same curiosity lead to?
My initial curiosity started when one of my teachers mentioned something about paternity leave
during class. He essentially said that it would solve gender inequality. That comment peaked my
interest as gender inequality was something I explored some during AP Seminar. Other areas of
inquiry that this curiosity might have led to include the effect of paternity leave on a child’s
development, the effect of paternity leave on gender equality as a whole rather than just the
division of household labor, the benefits and drawbacks of paternity leave as compared to
maternity leave, and the development of gender equality in the Nordic countries following the
introduction of paternity leave.

What unanticipated turn did you encounter as your research progressed? What were the
reasons for this change in direction or focus, and how did you modify your method or
approach?
An unanticipated turn I encountered as my research progressed was that I decided to focus more
on the division of household labor itself rather than look at the effect of paternity leave on gender
equality as whole because I thought that a smaller focus would allow for a stronger argument.
Gender equality is too big of a subject to tackle in a research paper like this, and based on the
information I got from the peer-reviewed journals, I knew that the division of household labor
would be a good focus. I modified my research method by asking questions in my survey
specifically about common household tasks and how the respondent divides that work with their
partner. I decided that this would be my focus before finishing the details of my research method,
so I did not need to modify much, but I was able to be more intentional in my survey and what
information I wanted to get out of it, whereas my original focus would have left me lost.