<p>So I’m in engineering, and people in science and engineering perform experiments. I’m wondering what people do in CS, math or history. Well, I guess in history, you read and analyze things. But what about math?</p>
<p>I’m not in math, but I am in a social science… and we conduct experiments/studies too. Just, using different methodologies and techniques.</p>
<p>My research proposal, which just got approved, involves a qualitative (interview-based) study of visitors to a particular recreation area, with the goal of understanding what experiences visitors are remembering from that site long after their visit is over.</p>
<p>I suppose in pure math they can test proofs. I know in CS my daughter found a new algorithm that caused a program to work faster/save resources. And she has done research to see which algorithm’s perform better when tested with vast amounts of data.</p>
<p>Another social scientist in an interdisciplinary field. My current study is qualitative, with focus groups and interviews. We also do quantitative studies out of my research center. There is even a group working on a new way of modeling using computers (we’ve got a bunch of undergrad computer programmers working on it). We don’t have a lab per se, but we are doing plenty of research.</p>