The Final Step

Chicago

My last week in the Summer Research Opportunities Program is almost here and our final presentation not far away. I am very happy with how the summer went and I cannot wait to share my research results at the Summer Symposium in a week from now. This week, I am finalizing all my work. This includes making last adjustments on my research poster, my oral and my final paper and discussing everything with my faculty mentor. From previous research I have learned that it is important to read the poster over and over again because there is always this one typo that nobody saw but after printing it is too late to change it.

Chicago

My goal this week is to put my poster into print on Friday and then focus on finalizing my oral presentation over the weekend. Before practicing with my mentor on Monday, I will familiarize myself with the slides and prepare myself to speak freely. Our last project will be the final paper that I already wrote. Next week, it will be time to make last adjustments before I can submit it. On August 8 it will be time to present my research results to the audience starting at 9:00am, followed by my poster at 1:00pm. This will be an exciting day that I cannot wait for. I will be finally able to share my results with other people, which is one of the most exciting parts in research. Until then – happy final research!

My SROP Faculty Mentor

In her research, my faculty mentor Dr. Santuzzi focuses, among others, on metaperceptions, knowing what other people think of us; the anxiety people often experience during interviews; and social interaction in face-to-face as well as virtual groups. From the very first moment I saw my faculty mentor’s research, I knew I wanted to work with her. I was especially fascinated by the fact what other people think of us and how social interaction can go when being in a virtual group. Meeting Dr. Santuzzi in person was absolutely great and I couldn’t wait to finally start working under her guidance. Dr. Santuzzi helped me to a great extent from the very first moment we started working together. Throughout the program, she gave me good guidance and helped me along the way. Before the SROP program even started, we already had Skype meetings where we discussed the research project in detail. This was a great way for me to get to know her better prior to the summer program and to dive deeper into the topic of my project. My mentor is very knowledgable about statistical analysis and so she helped me a lot with my work in SPSS. She was and is not only a great guide for me during my time here with SROP, but also helped me with academic questions. I was able to ask her questions about graduate school and learned about some great schools from her.

 

To give you an update on my project with SROP, it is going very well and I can’t wait to see my final results by hopefully the end of this week or the latest by next week. My mentor and I just met this week but will meet again this Thursday to finalize the results and look once again at the data analysis. I am very excited to see the outcomes of this project and hope we will get some significant results. I can definitely say that without my mentor I would have never learned as much as I did during our 8 week program with SROP. She was a great guide from the start until the end and supported me whenever I needed help or answers to my questions. Regarding my project progress, my poster and my oral presentation are almost done and I only miss the results and conclusions. Let’s cross fingers and hope for a successful end of this week!

 

 

A Summer Full of Research

This summer has been incredible so far. I can definitely say that I have learned a lot about research because of all the great activities and workshops with the SROP program. Having such good guidance from my mentor Dr. Santuzzi and her graduate student, I am learning so much more about the research process and can deepen my knowledge with the data analysis tool SPSS. My favorite activity this summer was our retreat weekend at Lorado Taft. This was an amazing weekend full of team activities and workshops around research. I liked the idea of spending 3 days in the woods and enjoying the nature around Oregon/Illinois. We did not only play games and had a campfire with S’mores, but also learned about preparing for our elevator pitch. This was an essential part of our summer research program as it helped us to strengthen our communication skills in front of a group. We learned how to communicate our own research project to the audience, which was very useful for conversations about our research in general. Telling somebody about my project in under one minute is not always easy but can be practiced over time. The workshop at Taft gave me a great insight into important techniques and prepared me well for my final presentation in 3 weeks.

Lorado Taft

As a researcher, I have not only strengthened my previous learned skills with the Research Rookies program and my work as the research assistant at the University of Chicago, but also learned new skills that are important for the research process overall. Before, I have only learned about SPSS in a fast paced way through my laboratory class in Psychology, but during my research with SROP I had the chance to dive even deepen into this tool. So far, I have cleaned data and just started with the data analysis with the help of my lab’s graduate student. As a professional, I have learned how to present myself in a professional way as SROP encourages us to always dress professionally. By having a new mentor for the summer, I made an important connection that I am so happy for. We work very well together and I hope we can also continue this work in the future.

Nachusa Grassland

NIU offers students many useful resources that can help the individual to even greater success while being in college. During this summer, I was happy to learn more about what the library has to offer and where to find journal articles that fit my research topic. One of our workshops in the library gave us an interesting insight into the search for the right article. Also, I liked the academic advising we received from NIU and our advisors. Different workshops around leadership and good writing skills introduced us to important resources on campus, such as the Leadership Academy. Those resources among others will help me in my upcoming year as a senior at NIU. As I will be working on my senior thesis, I will need to look for more peer reviewed articles that I can get from the library. Academic advising will be important this year when I will start my application process for graduate school. Having had the opportunity to work with two different mentors in Psychology, I will have the chance to learn more about this process from them.

Research – The Key to Success

If I could tell a junior or senior in high school about opportunities in college, I could not even stop talking. Especially research programs, such as SROP, open young university students the door to their future success, be it personally or professionally. Having the chance to look at one’s major more closely through working in a laboratory opens so many doors.

Before I started working in the lab, I only knew about my major in Psychology through my course work. Everything was based on theoretical aspects but I was not able to experience the subject matter through hands-on experience. I had no idea how the world of research actually looked like. My first step into the laboratory with the Research Rookies program opened my eyes for psychological research. I was now able to put learned theory into practice. Things that I learned in my cognitive, social or personality psychology classes made more sense now.

Me in the lab

I can say the same about SROP. The 8-week long summer research program provides me with an opportunity that I have not had in my life before. I am now able to build on my previous research experience in my year with Research Rookies and can learn even more about IRB, data collection, data cleaning, analysis, poster creation and oral presentations. Even though I have learned a lot about research already, there is always more to explore. I have not had the chance before to present my research in form of an oral presentation. This summer, I will have the chance to do so with my current project Judgment Bias in Evaluative Situations. I am very excited what my data analysis via SPSS will bring this week.

All in all, research programs like SROP have effected my college experience to a great extent. I cannot thank The Office of Student Engagement and Experimental Learning from Northern Illinois University enough for the amazing opportunities they have provided me with throughout my undergraduate career. I am so thankful for my Research Rookies experience and SROP this summer. My fall will be filled with my work on my honors thesis and my work as an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Occupational Health & Stress Laboratory of Dr. Larissa Barber. Once again we will be working on my project from last year and elaborate on our findings. This will be a year full of adventures and most important of all, a learning experience.

At Dr. Baker’s house, NIU president

I have to say that programs like SROP affected my college experience at NIU in a way that made me grow so much. I have not only learned so much about Psychology overall, but specifically about the research process that will be even more important in graduate school. Starting early with research showed me the path I would like to go in the future. Without programs like SROP and Research Rookies, I would have never met such wonderful mentors like Dr. Barber and Dr. Santuzzi who are such amazing advisors along my way. I learned a great deal about research but also about being more professional and prepared for graduate school. Applying to a PhD or master program is not always easy, but with their help I feel so much more confident and ready to take the next step.

This being said, I would recommend every new student in college to start with research as soon as possible. I have always told new freshman at NIU to look into the different undergraduate research opportunities that NIU offers them. Being part of this unique community from the beginning can open the individual doors that would have otherwise been closed until they reached graduate school.

Half way through the research…

I cannot believe it but we are already half though the Summer Research Opportunities Program here at NIU. Four great weeks that have been full of amazing activities and meeting interesting people. My research with my faculty mentor Dr. Santuzzi is going very well and I am looking forward to the end results four weeks from now.

Since this was my first experience with online data collection through the Amazon Mechanical Turk, I was not sure first how fast this process would be. What I experienced last Friday, surprised me to a great extend and made me being even more excited for the project. After distributing the survey online, it only took an hour to collect 200 responses. I could not even believe my own eyes when I saw how many people participated in such a short time. This was an incredible experience and made me look forward to the data analysis process. My plan for the rest of this week is starting with data cleaning and later the analysis.

SROP Group

I enjoyed our time at Dr. Baker’s house, NIU president, for a barbecue last night. All of the students and faculty had an amazing time sharing stories about their research. Today, we good a tour at Fermilab where we learned a lot about their industry and career opportunities. I am very thankful for the opportunities that the Office of Student Engagement and Experimental Learning is proving us with. Not only through this summer research program, but also though my Research Rookies project, I have learned so much about the research process overall. I am looking forward to four more successful weeks with SROP and hope to gain even more knowledge about research that will be relevant in my graduate career in the near future.

Dr. Baker, Maria Senf, & Dr. Stover

 

Ethics in Research

Being ethical in research means to use others sources with caution. When I do literature search for my own research projects, I always look for ideas that can fit in my topic but I DO NOT copy them! Paraphrasing and using my own words is a good way to avoid plagiarism. Not following this rule can have a devastating impact on other authors’ property, such as stealing their ideas and getting credit for it. This is very unethical and is unacceptable. This being said, being ethical stands for honesty, truthfulness and the avoidance of error. Using my own words in my research articles is necessary in order to publish honest work and succeed in the world of research.

In my field of research, different types of ethical issues are prevalent. As described earlier, some authors try to copy whole sentences from other peer reviewed articles that they present as their own. Furthermore, it has happened that people try to use certain parts of others that they implement in their own articles. Others have copied whole articles. This is called plagiarism because those authors stole the exact words from other people. In order to avoid this, it is important to only read the other’s words but come up with own ideas and language.

When I started my undergraduate career at Northern Illinois University, I have been introduced to the issue of plagiarism on my very first day. In every class I had I was told to be very careful when using outside sources. I have always tried to only read the other source but then use my own words to write these ideas down. So far, this has worked very well and I have not encountered any ethical issue. Nevertheless, I have been in situations where I was unsure about whether I used the right words. My English classes taught me well to feel more comfortable about that topic. Using a program called Safe Assign for all submitted assignments helped me in my classes to get an understanding of my ethical writing behavior. I learned that using lots of synonyms helped me to avoid plagiarism. Today I can say that having been exposed to such training in my undergraduate career shaped me well when it comes to ethical behavior.

This summer, I have not encountered any ethical issues yet. Nevertheless, I did not feel good about talking about my research in particular in my last blog post. Since we have not started with data collection yet, I did not want to give any secret information away. The workshops on ethics gave me a great overview of ethics in research. This was an essential preparation for my work in the SROP program as well as my future research in the fall. It did not specifically change the way I approach ethical dilemmas in my research, as I already knew before how important ethics were, but it made me more aware of what things to look out for when conducting ethical research.

 

My First Week of Research with SROP

My first week of research is off to a good start. I received approval for the IRB, started with the creation of the online survey, met with my mentor and the graduate student from my lab. Together, we worked on the random assignment for the study. After setting up the study announcement next week, I can finally start with the data collection.

My SROP project ascertains perceptions of evaluations. In the study, I will ask the participants questions about personality characteristics, interactions with their supervisor, and demographics. Lots of literature search and writing on my proposal helped me to familiarize myself with the field beforehand. Also, talking to my mentor gave me a good overview of the topic as she directed me towards the right literature.

I expect the data analysis via SPSS to be my greatest challenge during my research this summer. Even though I have worked with this tool before, I am very happy to dive even deeper into the subject matter and learn essential skills of statistical data analysis that I will also need for my work in graduate school. Working closely together with my faculty mentor and the graduate student from my lab will help me to improve my knowledge in this field.

The Leadership Academy workshop this week has been the most valuable for me so far. This summer, I do not only get to experience hands-on research, but can also learn important skills and techniques when it comes to being a leader. I was amazed by  how this workshop was organized. Important skills that a good leader has to have were “brought” to us through interactive activities with the group. The workshop reminded me of the book I am currently reading: Leaders Make the Future – Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World by Bob Johansen. I can definitely say that I learned a lot about being a good leader. Many people around the globe can be leaders but not everybody is a good leader! What I learned yesterday is something that will follow me along the way into graduate school and even into my future career. Knowing about important leadership skills is essential to succeed in life!

The SROP Team

 

This being said, skill development this summer is very important to me. Even though I have done research before, I can learn so much more about the research process overall. I have acquired quantitative and qualitative research skills as well as improved my statistical knowledge that is so essential in the world of psychology. Developing those skills and acquiring new ones this summer will prepare me well for my senior thesis in the fall as well as my work in graduate school next year.

SROP – My second Step in the Lab

The first day of my SROP experience is finally here! During the last month, I have been working on my proposal in coordination with my faculty mentor Dr. Alecia Santuzzi. This was a first successful start to our research project Judgment Bias in Evaluative Situations and a great experience to get acquainted with my research that I will be conducting during this summer. I am very happy this process went so smoothly and that I only have to do the final edits now. I cannot wait to finally start with the project and collect data.

Maria and Giulia – SROP

The one thing that surprised me the most about my first week in SROP was that I met so many students from all over the United States. This is a great way to make new connections and share my research experiences with others. I like the idea that we are paired with summer research participants from other programs. I am able to learn so much more about research in different areas or majors and discover things that I have never thought about in those particular ways.

So far, I have met some really interesting students from the research programs SROP, REU, and MCKearn. It is amazing that there are so many different majors present that all focus on totally different areas, such as Chemistry, Community Leadership and Civic Engagement, Computer Sciences, Psychology, and Electrical Engineering. Besides working on my own research program this summer, I am looking forward to learning more about the projects of my peers. Living together helps us strengthen those connections and even makes us learn from each other.

Happy research!

A Year full of Research and Success

My research experience with Research Rookies has now come to an end – at least for this year. My poster presentation at URAD was a full success and I still cannot believe that I won the 1st price. This was a real accomplishment and I cannot express in words how happy and proud I am! I am thankful for everybody who supported me with my project. My biggest “thank you” goes to my mentor Dr. Barber. Without her, I would have never learned so much about Occupational Health Psychology and especially the research process. She was such a wonderful guide throughout the year and made me realize how much research means to me. I am very thankful for that and look forward to our future work.

My poster at URAD

In my senior year in the fall, I will be working on my honors thesis that will be based on my Research Rookies project. I am very excited to work in Dr. Barber’s lab once again where I will learn so much more about research and my path towards graduate school. I look forward to writing my own proposal and thesis that will provide me with an even deeper inside into Sleep & Boundary Management around Technology Use.

Dr. Larissa Barber, Maria Senf and Dr. Julia Spears

My poster for URAD

Creating my poster for the Undergraduate Research & Artistry Day (URAD) was a great learning experience for me that was also a lot of fun. Since I am very hands-on person and love to be creative, this was an interesting way to combine my new gained research knowledge with my creative skills. I already started working on my poster back in early February. This gave me enough time to implement everything I needed and made me focus more on my research process later on.

The most exciting part about my poster was to pick the finished product up from Media Services. Unfortunately, there were some graphical issues but they were not too severe. This was a little disappointing but overall it showed what I wanted to present. I had to put my poster in print a little earlier than everybody else because of my participation at NCUR, the National Conference on Undergraduate Research.

 

Spending 3 days at this conference in Kentucky was my first real experience at a research conference. This definitely helped me to develop presenting skills and prepared me well for the upcoming URAD. I received lots of positive feedback about my poster and the research which made me feel even more excited about the upcoming event. Because of this “pre-training” I feel less nervous about URAD and look forward to a successful and inspiring day. I am a little nervous about the judges but I am sure that I will be fine as long as I do what I did at NCUR. I am the most excited for showing everybody my poster that I am very proud of.