Austin College Psychology Research

The Psychology Department has research labs on the third floor of the Hopkins Center. There are certain psychology journals on the third floor hallway as well as in the psychology library. This library also houses books that may be searched according to their catalog number, title or author. This room also serves as a waiting room for study participants. There is lab space available for running studies with children with age-appropriate toys and a table and chairs sized for small children. This space and other rooms in the lab are appropriate for running studies with adults. There is also space for housing animals and running studies with animals. A computer is available for research purposes including collecting data from study participants, creating study stimuli using SuperLab, and analyzing data using SPSS.

Getting Research Experience

Psychology is a discipline based upon theory grounded in empirical research. Given that the Ph.D. is a research degree, many graduate programs in psychology encourage applicants to get research experience as undergraduates. There are several opportunities for students to get involved in psychology research at AC as several faculty members hold regular lab meetings with research assistants during the school year.

For example,

Hank Gorman involves students in research at the Drug Court. Stacy George completed a senior honors thesis on this topic.
Michele Helfrich involves students in research relating to psychology and law like eyewitness testimony. Students who have worked with her often present their research at conferences.
Lisa M. Brown involves students in research on intergroup relations. Often this research had been presented at conferences.
Karen Nelson and Jill Schurr are regularly involved in overseeing senior honors theses.

For more information, contact the individual professor whose research most interests you.

All research must be conducted in an ethical manner.

Before conducting any research project, a research proposal must first be reviewed by an ethics board. In addition, when conducting research on animals, the facilities one uses must be certified.

For more information on conducting animal research, go to the AC Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) webpage.

For more information on conducting human research, read the AC Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines. Click here to download a template of the IRB research proposal form.

Participating in a Study for Extra Credit

Some professors may offer extra credit for your participation in other students' research studies. Being a study participant is a way for you to learn firsthand what it's like to be in a study. In addition, you should learn something about current research in the field of psychology. You first must fill out a short questionnaire providing basic information about you to experimenters. You may fill out that questionnaire at this link. In order to receive credit, you must have your participation verified by one of the experimenters. Your specific professor may require you to do more, but at the very least you need to download this form and have it signed by your experimenter after you complete the study.

If you are an experimenter interested in having people from the participant pool involved in your study, please contact Sarah White at swhite@austincollege.edu.

Honors Theses

At the end of their junior year students who have demonstrated excellence in their psychology classes are invited to complete a senior honors theses. It is an honor to be invited, but acceptance of the invitation is not mandatory; one may complete the capstone requirement in one of the other ways.

Click here to see examples of titles of senior honors theses in psychology.
Click here to download a copy of the Psychology Department Honors Policy.

Psychology Department Honors Policy:

A student participating in the Honors Program in Psychology is expected to complete an empirically bassed project. The project may be an original research project or may be linked to a faculty member's current research interest. In either case, the student is expected to write a research proposal that must be approved by the Psychology Department faculty prior to submission of the tentative title and committee membership to the Honors Committee assistant. A student may receive a maximum of three units of independent study credit for the project.

General guidelines:

By late spring talk with a likely chair about the possible topic; by early fall semester you must submit a tentative topic (not title) and a committee (one of whom must come from outside the department).
Review several psychology theses in Abell to get a sense of the scope of an honors project.
Submit to the department chair your tentative title, your committee and a brief proposal (stating the problem, your objectives, your hypotheses, the design including techniques, sampling, and planned statistical procedures, and critical references). The department as a whole must endorse your project.
Register for an independent study for fall, January and spring with your chair as instructor (you can submit one form for all three).
Most conferences have submission dates of mid-November to early January. For the most competitive, you have to have your data collected and superficially analyzed before you submit.
The department encourages summer work on the literature review since your goal should be to have the literature review completed by December.
Submit your draft literature review to each committee member once your chair has given you his/her approval. Ideally, you should have a meeting with your committee to talk through your design and your hypotheses before you go through the IRB or begin collecting data so you know the committee supports your work.
Data should be collected by the end of fall semester, so that January can be devoted to data analysis and writing. We recognize different methodologies may involve slightly different timelines. The goal is to protect you so that most of early spring is spent writing.
The draft of the final thesis should go to your chair by the week after Spring break.
We encourage students to attempt theses but promise to work with you if you decide you cannot finish. Talk with your thesis chair at any time about changing your plans. It truly is an honor to be nominated and you have no obligation to continue if you have lost your passion for the project.

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