Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and the minds of people. Students interested in this form of science take classes with Dr. Jenny Jellison, associate professor of psychology. One event that is part of the curriculum that Jellison provides is an educational trip to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, for the Laurel Highlands Undergraduate Student Research Conference held at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Michele Karpathian, professor of psychology, attends these events and commented on the importance of the trip to the students.
“The trip allows students to present their research at the conference,” said Karpathian. “Students write articles based on projects that they conducted during the class.”
Karpathian takes care of the administrative process of planning the trip and has attended these trips since they first started 14 years ago, when Jellison was hired at Waynesburg University. Karpathian said that the students greatly benefit from the trip.
“Graduate schools look for experience like that,” said Karpathian. “More and more kids would enjoy the kind of opportunity that comes from attending the event, and not only presenting their own work, but also listening to other students’ work and professional psychology researchers that may even attend the event.”
When Jellison was first interviewed for a teaching position at Waynesburg, the department wanted there to be more research for students working toward a degree in psychology. One option that she proposed was the psychology conference. Students would conduct research topics that Jellison approved and spend an entire class period working on their topics.
“Students put together their own research,” said Jellison. “I facilitate the methods of how students are to go about doing the research.”
Jellison also believes that the conference is not just a great learning experience for researchers or psychology majors, but for any student.
“This is beneficial to all students that are interested, and can look great on their résumés,” said Jellison. “It can be neat life experience, and, if [they’re] brave enough to do it, [they’ll] go far and beyond.”
The projects were split into three groups of four, and each group worked on three topics. Some of the topics involved social and personal beliefs. One topic mentioned the use of miss-information. The study examined how our memory gets tricked when we perceive something and someone else stated it happened another way—showing how people perceive events differently from one another. Jellison described the test that the students orchestrated to demonstrate the effects of miss-information.
“We put people into a room, and had them watch a video,” said Jellison. “We then tested them on the video, while having people on the inside stating wrong answers during the test. This showed us that people with confidence in their answers used them, and those who were not confident, chose to listen to the wrong answers.”
Sadie Breon, a psychology major in Jellison’s class and one of the group members that conducted the test, was not afraid of research. Much like other students, however, she still didn’t want to do it.
“I thought it was scary, standing in front of other schools and researchers,” Breon exclaimed. “It was, however, a great way to challenge yourself and help to provide your own work.”
Any students interested in psychology and wanting to present research for the experience should talk to Jellison.