Longwood University

Department of Psychology - Student Research Guide

Students at any level of college can participate, starting freshman year. The earlier you start, the more likely it is that you'll have tangible evidence of your hard work (such as conference presentations and/or journal publications). To get started, simply think about what you would like to study and which faculty member you would like to work with.

Collaborating on research with a faculty member can enhance your education and career in many ways:

  1. You will significantly enhance your chances of being accepted into a graduate program, especially a Ph.D. program.
  2. You may have one or more papers accepted at a conference, and possibly reviewed and/or accepted by a journal. Presenting or publishing a study is one of the key indicators graduate programs use to determine the strengths of applicants.
  3. You will enhance the likelihood that you'll receive strong letters of recommendation from faculty as you apply for jobs or graduate school.
  4. You will understand psychology and research at a much higher level.
  5. You will enjoy conducting research and feel confident in your ability to tackle difficult tasks.
Here is an approximate description of what students can do each year:

Freshmen can:

  1. participate in research meetings
  2. participate in data collection
  3. participate in data coding and data entry
  4. browse/read journals to determine what interests you most
  5. observe experimental procedures performed by faculty and upper level students
Sophomores can:
  1. develop their ideas and interests
  2. begin to plan how the topic might be investigated
  3. read/search the literature (journals and books) for ideas and measures
  4. formulate a plan for conducting the study in the fall of junior year
Juniors can:
  1. collect data
  2. analyze data
  3. write up a report for conference presentation
  4. attend the conference as a presenter, thus gaining recognition outside Longwood University and receiving valuable feedback about the study before submitting it to a journal for possible publication
Seniors can:
  1. submit the article to a journal for possible publication
  2. rewrite the article after receiving comments
  3. resubmit the article to the journal
  4. conduct a second study that is an extension of the previous study
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Comments to Dr. Bjornsen. Updated July 11, 2000