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Student Research Q&A Regan, a human services major, says she has always wanted to work with children. Here's why she decided to do research in the social sciences. Why did you decide to major in the social sciences field? I decided to major in human services I wanted to broaden my perspective and work with all different types of people. You get to find out what you like and sometimes what you don't like through hands-on experience. You take what you learn in the classroom and apply it to the real world, which can be a very rewarding experience. What are your career goals? I am going to study Human Development and Family Studies in graduate school. A main goal of mine for the future is to continue with research. I will probably teach at a college and do research on the side. Exploring the social sciences helped me to find my passion for research, which I would not have found otherwise. What are the benefits of studying the social sciences at Elon? I think a good mentor can influence your project and its success. I had a very supportive and trusting mentor who wanted the best for the project and wanted to make my experience a great one. Elon's program allowed me to develop skills necessary for working on, completing and presenting research projects. Presenting research is a great. The more you do, the more comfortable you become with it. What is your original research project? My research, which I conducted with another human services major, is called "Peer Scaffolding in the Schools." We looked at scaffolding behaviors that third graders ("experts") used to help pre-kindergarten children ("novices") complete a craft. In order to look at the scaffolding behaviors, we grouped them into four categories: comprehension, feedback, facilitation and social link. The third graders visited the pre-k children once a month and were paired the same each time, which allowed for a relationship to develop between expert and novice. The unique feature of our study involves this relationship. It focuses on the behaviors in the social link category exhibited by the experts. These behaviors included laughing/joking with the child, reassurance, building bridges and social bridges. Often the children talked about siblings, friends, holidays, or what they had been up to. Through analyzing the research, we found that children can successfully scaffold other children. |
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