Junior and senior psychology majors are scrambling to gather data for their senior theses, which are due at the end of the semester.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Collin Barnes said that although psychology students have access to volunteers from the introductory psychology courses, the department is extending recruitment to the rest of campus.
“Some students like to draw from outside of those classes to boost their numbers, and they’re welcome to do so,” Barnes said. “This is just the first formal attempt we’ve made as a department to make our recruitment goals public.”
Barnes said that the department decided to open recruitment to campus not because the projects were at risk of not being completed, but because it is better to have more volunteers than fewer. It is recommended that each experiment have 30 to 40 participants.
“We really are just trying to raise awareness and, hopefully, gain some additional research participants in the process,” he said.
The studies focus on a range of subjects, such as memory, attitudes, selfperceptions, and social beliefs. Barnes said that one study examined the relationship between religious commitment, parenting styles, and morality.
Junior Kaitlin Norton is a psychology major who is in the second half of her research. Norton is looking at doctorate programs for after she graduates Hillsdale, and the success of her project on memory and online computer use is vital to acceptance into such programs.
“Having more participants can make our research look more credible and respectable,” Norton said. “Also, statistically speaking, our results will have a lot more power when we have more participants. Already, I have had random people sign up for my study just because they were
interested in having their memory assessed or just wanted to lend a helping hand.”
Norton said that her project, which takes less than 30 minutes and is all done on the computer, consists of three parts: a questionnaire assessing the participant’s online social media use, the online portion, and a posttest to assess the participant’s memory. She currently has 30 participants but was hoping for at least 40. The data for the projects needs to be collected before the rest of the thesis can be completed.
“Without our participants, we would only have half of our paper to write,” she said. “I have already completed the introduction and the methods section of the paper, but without a significant amount of people to take part in our research, we will not know what the end results are and if our hypotheses are proven or not. Unfortunately, an allnighter and a case of Red Bull will not help us because there is so much work to be done before hand.”
Norton said she is also offering bribes for volunteers.
“Because I need participants, I am also now offering homemade cookies in order to entice
people who are nonpsychology students to help me out,” she said.
Senior Ariel Torres said that her thesis is a study on social perception. She said that project deadlines are rapidly approaching, and the students wanted to have all the data collected by this point.
“A lot of us are emailing friends and guilt tripping them at this point,” Torres said. “It’s a little nerve wracking for those of us who haven’t collected all the data yet. Few have met that goal.”
Some psychology teachers have even been offering extra credit to students in order to encourage them to sign up.
Sophomore Daniel Negri volunteered for the projects in past semesters and is doing so again this semester. He said that he enjoys psychology and helping the seniors complete their
projects.
“It doesn’t take much time, it helps the psychology majors, and I personally like the discipline,” Negri said. “If it’s helping them, I don’t mind taking the 10 minutes to do the study.”
Volunteers are also encouraged to attend the project presentation, which will take place in late April, to hear the results of the studies.
Students may see what tests are available and sign up at the bulletin board outside of Kendall 335. The tests take between 15 and 30 minutes.
Barnes said that volunteers can satisfy curiosity about psychological research, be inspired to take courses, and can contribute to the quest of learning about general human interactions. “Psychology research is more often than not concerned with illuminating general truths about human behavior and mental processes rather than the psychology of individual persons,” Barnes said.
