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Biography
Allison Starks is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education’s Human Development in Context specialization. As a former K-12 classroom educator and technology supervisor, she is interested in how child development, K-12 education, and digital technologies shape children’s experiences in the digital age.
Allison uses various research methods to explore child-level experiences, family dynamics, and school-level practices with technology. She is especially interested in how children, families, schools, and policymakers can work together to ensure equal access to learning and to support youth well-being. Currently, Allison is conducting mixed methods research to understand digital lives of children in late elementary school (ages 8-11) and national trends in digital literacy instruction and smartphone use. Other projects include content analyses of underage social media accounts, prosocial behavior in group chats, adolescent sexting behaviors, digital privacy practices, mindful media interventions, and digital divides in K-12 special education.
Another strand of Allison’s work acknowledges the role that technology design, the technology industry, and the regulatory context plays in shaping the experiences of children online in the US. She considers algorithmic rights, datafication, and persuasive design features and draws attention to how design practices impact youth.
Allison is a Community Research Fellow with the Orange County Educational Advancement Network (OCEAN) and she partners with schools, after school programs, nonprofit organizations and community institutions to better understand youth practices with technology and the forces that shape their experiences. She draws on her training and mentorship in research practice partnerships, design-based intervention research, and youth participatory action research (YPAR) methods to conduct this work.
In 2022, Allison received the Public Impact Fellowship from UC Irvine for her dissertation work and its potential to impact public policy. Allison regularly writes public-facing articles and conducts research and synthesizes findings for organizations like Common Sense Media and the U.S. Office of Educational Technology.
Allison Starks is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education’s Human Development in Context specialization. As a former K-12 classroom educator and technology supervisor, she is interested in how child development, K-12 education, and digital technologies shape children’s experiences in the digital age.
Allison uses various research methods to explore child-level experiences, family dynamics, and school-level practices with technology. She is especially interested in how children, families, schools, and policymakers can work together to ensure equal access to learning and to support youth well-being. Currently, Allison is conducting mixed methods research to understand digital lives of children in late elementary school (ages 8-11) and national trends in digital literacy instruction and smartphone use. Other projects include content analyses of underage social media accounts, prosocial behavior in group chats, adolescent sexting behaviors, digital privacy practices, mindful media interventions, and digital divides in K-12 special education.
Another strand of Allison’s work acknowledges the role that technology design, the technology industry, and the regulatory context plays in shaping the experiences of children online in the US. She considers algorithmic rights, datafication, and persuasive design features and draws attention to how design practices impact youth.
Allison is a Community Research Fellow with the Orange County Educational Advancement Network (OCEAN) and she partners with schools, after school programs, nonprofit organizations and community institutions to better understand youth practices with technology and the forces that shape their experiences. She draws on her training and mentorship in research practice partnerships, design-based intervention research, and youth participatory action research (YPAR) methods to conduct this work.
In 2022, Allison received the Public Impact Fellowship from UC Irvine for her dissertation work and its potential to impact public policy. Allison regularly writes public-facing articles and conducts research and synthesizes findings for organizations like Common Sense Media and the U.S. Office of Educational Technology.
