Seniors describe psychology research projects

December 4, 2007

Nine students in the psychology program’s Research III course presented projects they have been working on for the past year. Here, three students describe their research projects and findings.

Priscilla Yokomizo

Using Clifton's StrengthsFinder's 34 themes of talents for the basis of strengths development, I am looking at the difference in achievement between a class that incorporated strengths development and one that did not. My general hypothesis is that those who know their strengths and integrate their strengths into other areas of life will be more successful in their achievements. Because I am looking at achievement, my project will not be finished until the end of the semester.

I have absolutely loved working on this project and would definitely recommend the research experience to other students. Doing a project like this allows you to put into practice what you have been learning in class, and you learn much more while working on the actual project. My interest in research has increased because of this experience and I am looking forward to more opportunities in the research field.

September Sherwood

My project was on the relationship between birth order and accurate self-perception. I used a hope, self-efficacy, and strengths scale to determine self-perception, and I used a friend response to determine accurate self-perception.

Conducting this experiment will greatly help me in graduate school. This project has been my writing sample for the graduate schools that I am applying to. Also, I want to get my master’s and eventually my doctorate. In order to earn these degrees, you have to conduct a research study like the one I performed. I gained needed experience to help me succeed in graduate school.

Nathan Burns

I researched gender differences in conveying auditory information. By using many different voice recordings with different gendered teachers, I looked to see if male or female participants recalled abstract (words like love or liberty) or concrete (words like basket or desk) words better.

I found no difference between the male and female teacher treatment and the participant's gender did not make a difference. My interesting finding, which is represented already in past research, was that the concrete words were recalled significantly more than the abstract words.

This project really helped me get a grasp on what research is really all about. I learned a great deal of information from Dr. Geoffrey Sutton in the classroom, but none of it fully made sense until I put it into this project. I am really proud of all the hard work it took to complete this project, and I plan to use all of my experience from it in graduate school and hopefully in the Fair Grove, Missouri, school system.