Students presenting at the Undergraduate Research SymposiumÂ
PSY 290 Special Projects: Research Apprenticeship
Student enrolled in Special Project hours under my supervision will learn several valuable research skills. First, students will be given a packet of material describing the research projects being conducting in the laboratory to better understand how research projects are developed. Second, students will learn to collect data from various developmental populations, (e.g., middle adolescents attending high school, late adolescents attending college, and parents of adolescents) using various methodologies (e.g., experimental designs, observational methods, and survey methods). Third, students will learn to enter data into a statistical program (SPSS).
PSY 390 Advanced Research Apprenticeship
Student enrolled in PSY 390 hours under my supervision will learn advanced research skills in many different ways. First, students may become the research laboratory director. This teaches the student how to organize and manage study materials, train new research assistants with data collection and data entry procedures, and supervise all activities in the research laboratory. This experience provides students will valuable leadership skills.
Second, students may choose to conduct their own research project. In the past, students have typically used data collected when they were enrolled in special project hours. Students choose specific variables in the study that are of interest to them, and learn how to write a literature review of those variables and develop hypotheses. Students learn how to conduct basic statistical analyses to test their hypotheses and write a final paper based on the results.
Students typically meet with me on a weekly or biweekly basis and write a final report of their progress. Past students have presented their projects at the (1) Undergraduate Research Symposium, (2) Department of Psychology’s Honors Colloquium, and (3) National Conferences.