Chaitra Harding, Psychology TA

"This course is the Senior thesis course that all Psychology Majors must complete. It is writing intensive, in fact the only thing graded in the course is the write up for various components of a Scholarly Research Manuscript.

On the first day of class I do the following brainstorming activity. Most of the students won't know what they want to write their paper on so this gives them an opportunity to start thinking.

Ask students to write down on a new piece of paper:

• What profession they would like to go into after graduating. (like management, marketing, investment banking, teaching)
• 5 subject areas outside of psychology that they find fun/interesting (either in school or life). (e.g. sports, sci-fi, video games, art, law, travel, kickin' it at the SA…statistics).
• 5 things that they have learned or heard about in their psychology classes that piqued their interest. (Like operant conditioning, personality, human factors engineering, advertising, human sexuality, job performance). Buddhist psychology, psychology of law, cross-cultural psychology, community psychology, psycholinguistics, psychology of religion, gender, race, and aging, etc.
• 5 statements that they have noticed about people in general that they think might be true. (e.g. Most people have called in sick for work even when they aren't. Most college students have been drunk at least once. If you tell someone you think that they can do something they are more likely to be able to do it).

Somewhere in their list is a research idea and the first place to start is what they want to be when they grow up. I want to be a consultant so I try to do things that relate. This research proposal could be done on something that relates to your future career, as psychology applies to every field in some way or another.

From the list I have on the board I show them several general research questions that could follow from combining my answers:

• Can kids who play video games learn to use computers quicker than those who don't?
• Are people who have traveled outside the U.S. better able to solve unexpected problems at work?
• What personality type tends to call in sick when they aren't? Does background music make people more willing to buy things?

I then have them select and circle 3 general topics from any of their answers to the above questions if it meets all of the following criteria:

• you would like to know more about it
• it is so interesting you could easily write three pages about the topic
• You could explain to us what it is and what you find interesting about it."

I ask them to pair up and tell the other person what their 3 ideas are and why. Then I have them tell the class one at a time and I write their ideas on the board. I ask students to listen for people who have similar interests or new ideas they haven't thought of that sound interesting.