NEWS
C-GCC Student Research Projects Accepted for Presentation by the Eastern Psychological Association
HUDSON – Eleven students at Columbia-Greene Community College received accolades from one of the oldest psychological associations in the country recently, having their research projects accepted for presentation by the Eastern Psychological Association (EPA).
Barbara Shaffer, associate professor of Psychology and Sociologyat C-GCC, explained that each year, students enrolled in her Research for the Behavioral Science course are charged with designing and conducting high quality research projects, which are in turn submitted to the EPA for possible presentation at its annual meeting.
“These students, under guidance, developed research hypotheses, collected and analyzed data, and wrote their original findings in professional form to be shared with the academic community,” she said, noting that each submission was peer-reviewed by members of the EPA, the oldest regional association of psychological associations in the United States, founded in 1896.
Four group projects were accepted from C-GCC, and findings were displayed as part of a poster session at the EPA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa. The research projects stood alongside the work of hundreds of other students from both two- and four-year institutions.
With Shaffer’s support, students Randy Dunham and Teanna Hedgpeth investigated the relationship between pet attachment and well-being, suggesting that further research is warranted in order to deduce whether pet-human connections create positive, negative, or neutral variables.
Christine Dempsey and Samantha Roggio posed the question ‘are highly religious individuals less intellectual?’, finding no significant correlation between religiosity and intellectualism.
Levi Usticke, Claudia Anderson, Alexandrea Lemus, and Amber Petrianni explored whether religious individuals have a need for closure, finding no significant relationship between the two variables, and Carlene Palmer-Palmateer, Samantha Mizener, and Sarah Juzapavicus examined ways to improve student engagement opportunities on a community college campus, aiming to prove that extracurricular involvement may have a positive effect on the academic performance of under-represented college students.
“This is quite an achievement, one that makes me very proud as a faculty member,” said Shaffer. “Most students at the community college level do not have the opportunity to present original findings at a professional conference, let alone a group of nearly a dozen.”
Barbara Shaffer, associate professor of Psychology and Sociologyat C-GCC, explained that each year, students enrolled in her Research for the Behavioral Science course are charged with designing and conducting high quality research projects, which are in turn submitted to the EPA for possible presentation at its annual meeting.
“These students, under guidance, developed research hypotheses, collected and analyzed data, and wrote their original findings in professional form to be shared with the academic community,” she said, noting that each submission was peer-reviewed by members of the EPA, the oldest regional association of psychological associations in the United States, founded in 1896.
Four group projects were accepted from C-GCC, and findings were displayed as part of a poster session at the EPA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa. The research projects stood alongside the work of hundreds of other students from both two- and four-year institutions.
With Shaffer’s support, students Randy Dunham and Teanna Hedgpeth investigated the relationship between pet attachment and well-being, suggesting that further research is warranted in order to deduce whether pet-human connections create positive, negative, or neutral variables.
Christine Dempsey and Samantha Roggio posed the question ‘are highly religious individuals less intellectual?’, finding no significant correlation between religiosity and intellectualism.
Levi Usticke, Claudia Anderson, Alexandrea Lemus, and Amber Petrianni explored whether religious individuals have a need for closure, finding no significant relationship between the two variables, and Carlene Palmer-Palmateer, Samantha Mizener, and Sarah Juzapavicus examined ways to improve student engagement opportunities on a community college campus, aiming to prove that extracurricular involvement may have a positive effect on the academic performance of under-represented college students.
“This is quite an achievement, one that makes me very proud as a faculty member,” said Shaffer. “Most students at the community college level do not have the opportunity to present original findings at a professional conference, let alone a group of nearly a dozen.”