Setting Up Your Research Experience
Steps for Setting Up Your Research Experience
Psychology 4999 is an opportunity to engage in an empirical or theoretical study in collaboration with an individual faculty mentor. Depending on the nature of the project, you may be involved in reviewing relevant literature, developing materials and procedures, data collection, analyses and presentation of your findings. This may also include a poster in the departmental poster session and/or a SURF presentation.
Steps for setting up your research experience:
1. Identify your research interests and find a faculty mentor. Talk to your professors and other students about their research. Attend research presentations. Prior to filling out the online 4999 registration form, meet with your faculty mentor to discuss your learning goals, required tasks and planned contacts.
2. Determine the number of hours you will work. In general, you may receive one hour of credit for every 40 hours of work. Forty hours will fulfill the General Studies Experiential Learning Requirement (ELR). You may take a total of 8 credit hours of Psychology 4999 for credit (i.e., up to 8 credits count toward graduation), perhaps distributed over one or more years. Most students find it takes more than 40 hours truly to profit from a research experience. Distributed across the semester, the workload looks about like this:
| Credit Hours | Hours per week |
|---|---|
| 1 | 3-5 |
| 2 | 5-10 |
| 3 | 10-13 |
| 4 | 13-15 |
3. Complete the Online 4999 Registration Form. This includes information about yourself, including your GPA and the courses you have taken in psychology, as well as information determined by you and your faculty mentor about the nature of the research project and requirements (e.g., attending meetings, doing background reading, collecting a certain amount of data, meeting deadlines, keeping a journal, completing a paper or presentation). Click here to visit the Undergraduate Research homepage with more info on 4999 and to get to the link to register.
4. Submit the 4999 form. It will be sent to your faculty mentor and then the department chair for approval. The form will be evaluated based on the appropriateness of the proposed experience for a psychology major.
Requirements: You must be of sophomore status or higher and have a minimum GPA of 3.0.
