Resources for Students

Authenitication by facial recognition concept. Biometrics. Security system.

I-O psychologists’ passion projects: Can AI predict your personality in a job interview?

We continue our exploration of the field of Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology, the American Psychological Association’s Division 14. I-O Psychology is the study of behavior in the workplace. I-O Psychologists frequently help businesses better hire, motivate, and retain employees. But they can apply their skills in many other ways.

We continue interviewing I-O Psychologists about their passion projects to show you how these individuals are applying their training to enact positive societal change. If you missed the earlier posts of this series, we encourage you to also read about the passion projects of Dr. Haley Woznyj, Dr. Ann Marie Ryan, and doctoral student Mike Morrison.

Meet Dr. Louis Tay, an Associate Professor at Purdue University’s Department of Psychological Sciences, and his graduate student, Louis Hickman. Louis Tay received his Ph.D. in I-O Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011. At Purdue, he pursues cross-disciplinary research with the goals of improving the psychological measurement techniques. He is also developing science-based well-being programs and policies for organizations and societies more broadly.

Louis Hickman received an M.S. in Computer and Information Technology with a specialization in Natural Language Processing from Purdue. He is currently an I-O Psychology doctoral candidate at Purdue, working with Louis Tay on several research projects at the intersection of psychology and Artificial Intelligence (AI).


The “good job” you want may not be “good for you”

Your Ability to Understand This Puzzling Statement Could Help You Maximize Your Future Occupational Success

A good way to decide if you should read this blog is to determine how well your beliefs about your future  career and your current education agree with the following quotes from the results of a Gallup poll of more than 30,000 college graduates across the United States who rated both the importance of their future occupations and the importance of the role their college education will play in helping them to achieve their occupational aspirations.


Communicating psychology: Becoming an undergraduate ambassador to share science

Last spring, I was an undergraduate student in an inaugural course called Communicating Psychological Science. At first, I was a little apprehensive about speaking out to my peers about psychological topics, but eventually, I became accustomed to the weekly routine of it and learned to enjoy it. My apprehension, perhaps like many undergraduates, was that I didn’t have enough experience speaking in front of others. While that is a valid fear, it is important to realize that most work in the field of psychology requires the ability to communicate effectively.


Junior high students and teachers using computers in computer lab

Early Research Experiences: Why Students Should Seek Out Opportunities As Early As High School

In this first post of a two-part series, we explore the challenging yet rewarding student research experience. Having been involved in research firsthand, and in managing research preparatory programs, we’ve seen how beneficial research experiences are for students. The following are our perspectives and that of students who recently completed the Baruch College Now STEM Research Academy, an intensive two-semester research preparatory program for NYC public high school students.


Best of the APA Style Blog: 2018 Edition

Each fall we put together a “best of” post to highlight blog posts and apastyle.org pages that we think are helpful both for new students and to those who are familiar with APA Style. You can get the full story in our sixth edition Publication Manual (also available as an e-book) and our APA Style Guide to Electronic References, in addition to the pages linked below.


A guide to lecturing as a grad student

Many universities offer teaching assistantships or require graduate students to teach as part of their training. While lecturing opportunities are an excellent way to build professional skills, they can be daunting for those who lack prior teaching experience or feel nervous about public speaking. Here is some advice on how to prepare for and give a lecture to an undergraduate class, as well as how to set fair course policies.


Stressed about Work? Occupational Health Psychology Can Help

Think about someone you know who really loves their job. Now think about someone you know who is frequently stressed about their job and dreads going to work. Have you noticed that some jobs appear to be more stressful than others? Perhaps it’s due to working too many hours, a supervisor that’s hard to work for, or a lack of balance between work and life outside of work.



A hand with a pen filling out an application for employment

I-O Psychologists’ Passion Projects: Increasing Fairness for Job Seekers with Criminal Records

We continue our exploration of the field of Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology, the American Psychological Association’s Division 14. If you’ve read our recent blogs, you already know that I-O Psychology is the study of behavior in the workplace. I-O Psychologists frequently help businesses better hire, motivate, and retain employees, but they can apply their skills in many other ways.

In this second blog of a new series, we continue interviewing I-O Psychologists about their passion projects to show you how these individuals are applying their training to make a difference in human or animal lives. The first post explored how an I-O psychologist helped the animal fostering program.


Shot of a programmer working on a computer code at night

Computational Social Science Skills

Our devices track our behavior in ways that create unimaginable amounts of information, information that can be useful for understanding human behavior. Not surprisingly, the widespread availability of these data parallels an increasing interest in data science and related topics (see Figure 1). Social scientists are increasingly using “big data” to examine theoretically-grounded research questions. Yet, few social scientists, especially psychologists, have the skills and training experiences needed to engage with this rapidly growing area of expertise called “data science.”