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PY 398 Opportunities |
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Below you will
find information on opportunities for students seeking PY 398 credit.
Check back often, as we will be posting new opportunities as they are
submitted. Dr. Laura E. Dreer: Contact phone: 205-325-8681 Contact email: dreer@uab.edu Description: Project THINK is a single-site, clinical trial designed to evaluate the efficacy of a psychoeducational based intervention (Problem Solving Therapy: PST) on patient and caregiver adjustment (i.e., emotional/functional/health outcomes) related to living with a vision impairment. Patients are currently being recruited through the UAB Center for Low Vision Rehabilitation. This is an ongoing 5-year study funded by the National Eye Institute and EyeSight Foundation of Alabama (ESFA). Students interested in becoming involved will be exposed to and participate in the following activities: clinical-research, administration of questionnaire/survey methods which are psychological, functional, and neuropsychological in nature; participate in recruitment activities with adults and older adults; gain experience in data coding/entry/analysis; implementation of a large-scale grant; assist in presentations at national conferences; and potentially participate in manuscript submissions. What Will Be Learned? Basic skills associated with clinical research (recruitment, data collection, data entry, basic data analysis); how to administer questionnaires and psychological measures to patients and their family members; development of basic clinical skills in working with an adult-older adult rehabilitation population; how to implement research activities as well as the daily aspects involved with conducting a clinical trial; experience with working in a multidisciplinary setting (optometrists, occupational therapists, clinical/research staff) How many students are needed? 5 When are they needed? May 2008 Minimum commitment: 1/2 day per week (5 hrs) Qualifications: Interest in clinical research activities; motivation to learn clinical-research skills; completion of introduction to psychology This opportunity is ongoing.
Dr. Candace L. Floyd: Contact email: clfloyd@uab.edu Description: Research in the laboratory evaluates novel treatments that could be of benefit for use in traumatic brain and spinal cord injury. We conduct pre-clinical studies in rodent models of CNS injury. Students will participate in animal care, injury model induction, behavioral analysis, and histological analysis. Please see our lab website at www.floyd-lab.com or contact Dr. Candace Floyd for more information. What Will Be Learned? Students will obtain meaningful skills including: small animal surgery techniques, behavioral pharmacology techniques, immunohistochemistry methods, and unbiased stereology. Additionally, critical thinking, data analysis, and proper experimental design are also emphasized. How many students are needed? 2 When are they needed? Immediately. Minimum commitment: 10 hours per week over 1 term Qualifications: Good communication and organization skills; strong work ethic This opportunity is ongoing.
Kim Guion, M.A., UAB Contact Phone: 205-934-3850 Contact E-mail: kguion@uab.edu Description: Dissertation data collection for a study involving coping and adjustment measures of teens and parents at Children's Hospital. This opportunity enables students to learn about psychology in a medical setting and concerns itself with children with chronic illnesses such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes, muscular dystrophy, and sickle cell anemia. Responsibilities include participant recruitment, consent, and data entry. What will be learned? Research skills such as data entry, statistics, and scientific communication/writing. How many students are needed? 2 When are they needed? May 2008 through December 2008 Minimum commitment: 3-10 hours/week Qualifications: Upper level undergraduate students are preferred (i.e., juniors and seniors)
Matthew Hocking, M.A., University of Alabama Contact Phone: 205-939-6874 Contact E-mail: hocki001@bama.ua.edu Project Title: Predictors of coping success in children with functional abdominal pain Description: Responsible, motivated undergraduate needed to assist with data collection for a dissertation project while primary investigator away on predoctoral internship in psychology. Project is collaboration between pediatric psychology and pediatric gastroenterology teams. Study is investigating the types of coping strategies that predict better outcomes in children with unexplained abdominal pain and whether their ability to regulate their attention influences the success of their coping strategies. Student is needed for help with participant recruitment and data collection. Student will be trained in neuropsychological measures of attention used for data collection, will gain research experience with multidisciplinary teams within medical setting, and will be included on future presentations at national research meetings. Student will be supervised by Dr. Avi Madan-Swain, a licensed pediatric psychologist. Data collection will take place at Children’s Hospital. How many students are needed? 1 When are they needed? Applications accepted immediately. Minimum commitment:
9-12 month commitment to project preferred with
weekly time commitment ranging from 5-10 hours. Dr.
Jesse B. Milby:
Contact phone: 934-8745 Contact email (preferred means of communication): schwebel@uab.edu Description: Several research projects are always ongoing, most of them
revolving around child safety and injury prevention. We usually work
with children ages 1-12, and their parents. Research examines processes
such as impulsivity, estimation of ability, and parenting that may lead
to children’s unintentional (accidental) injuries. Students in the UAB
Youth Safety Lab have the opportunity to work on a few different
research projects over the course of their tenure in the laboratory. Dr. Gitendra Uswatte: Contact Phone: 975-5089 Contact E-mail: guswatte@uab.edu Description: A current area of much interest in adolescent psychology is aggression and its reduction. The approach typically adopted is to teach adolescents skills such as distraction techniques and cognitive reframing that permit them to suppress or transform their anger, as well as to change their social environments to facilitate this process. What this project proposes is to a take a different approach to these problems. Rather than teaching adolescents to be less aggressive or angry, this project proposes to help children to be more kind and caring. The aim, in a rough sense, is to "grow" kindness and thereby "crowd out" aggression. These are the overarching or ultimate goals of the project. It is currently in its infancy and the immediate goals are to develop appropriate measurement instruments. The approach planned is to use structured focus groups to develop participant-centered measures of kindness and related constructs. The next step would be to examine the relationship of kindness to other benevolent behaviors and to aggressive behaviors. (A significant literature exists on prosocial behaviors in children from infancy through age twelve. However, a much smaller amount of research on caring and kindness has been conducted with children of middle school age.) The last step would be to develop interventions, based on the studies proposed, delivered in school-settings, that would cultivate kindness in adolescents. As noted, during the first phase, we would like to conduct structured focus groups with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in the Hoover school board. We anticipate conducting 12-16 focus groups at each grade level. Each focus group would contain 6-10 children and run approximately 40 minutes. The basic format would be posing a single question to the students, permitting them to write down answers to the question privately, soliciting and writing down unique answers on a flip chart or blackboard, and asking students to rank the unique answers according to various dimensions. The questions posed, for example, would be "What does being kind mean to you?" and "What sorts of things make it easy for a teenager to be kind?" We expect that the best time to conduct the groups would be during regular school hours. In addition, we would like to conduct 2 focus groups per grade level with teachers and parents. The aims of this study are congruent with values that schools are trying promote. We see our work as being connected, in some part, to the larger movement towards providing character education in schools. If our initial efforts succeed, we hope to work together with the Hoover school system to make this a model program in teaching virtues. What would be learned? In 2003-2004, we will run focus groups with parents, teachers, and children to solicit their attitudes and conceptions regarding kindness. You will participate in the planning of the groups, run the groups in teams of two, enter data collected, and take part in its interpretation. You will learn a formal method for conducting structured research groups and gain knowledge about research design and the analysis of qualitative data. How Many Students are Needed? 2 When are they needed? Immediately Minimum commitment: 8 hours / week Minimum Terms Needed: 2 Qualifications: Enjoy working with middle school students. Enjoy conducting groups. Smart. Responsible. Some familiarity with Excel. Completion of research design, statistics, and/or developmental psychology courses would be of advantage but is not a prerequisite. This opportunity is ongoing.
Contact phone: 934-8563
email: reweller@uab.edu |