Resources for Students

Undergraduate Students, Undergraduate Teachers May 1, 2017

Teaching (and Learning) Psychology Statistics in an Age of Math Anxiety

Every semester, psychology students around the country anxiously file into their required, introductory statistics classes. Although some love it, statistics tends to be difficult and anxiety-producing for psychology students (who sometimes refer to it as Sadistics 101). To combat this, publishers have released a flurry of student-friendly textbooks designed to make statistics more palatable. However, students often face challenges learning statistics, and, frankly, don’t generally like it.

High School Students, Undergraduate Students April 24, 2017

Navigating Email Expectations

Now in my 8th year as a psychology professor, one topic job that seems to consistently come up in conversation around working with students is email etiquette. I guess I should clarify that these conversations usually have to do with one part of email etiquette: expected response time. For better or worse (probably worse), it’s clear that in academia email has become the dominant way people communicate with each other.

Undergraduate Students, Undergraduate Teachers April 17, 2017

Lighting the Way for Workplace-Bound Psychology Baccalaureates

As commencement approaches, our baccalaureate psychology graduates will likely hear the familiar admonition “But you can’t get a decent job with a bachelor’s degree in psychology!”  There is some truth to that warning (Carnevale, et al., 2015; Rajecki & Borden, 2011) and to employers’ complaints that graduates are unprepared for work. However, if we vigorously shared other data with our students we could instill optimism in the 55% of those graduates who enter the job market.

How can teachers and advisors help?

Undergraduate Students March 20, 2017

Finding an Approach to Writing that Works for You

A few years ago my research team and I set out to understand a simple question:

How do very productive academic psychologists approach their work?

We specifically were interested in professors who published a lot and whose publications were cited heavily by other academics. And because our research area was counseling psychology we specifically targeted faculty in these programs. To find these folks we tallied the numbers of publications and citations for every faculty member in a counseling psychology program and then asked the 20 most productive people on this list if they would be willing to be interviewed – 17 agreed.

Graduate and Postgraduate Students, Undergraduate Students March 6, 2017

I-O Psychology: From Early Origins to Current Trends

What is I-O psychology?

Industrial-organizational psychologists research and apply principles of psychology to the world of work. Their mission is to identify and apply techniques that benefit not only employers, but also employees. In general, the more efficient an organization is (be it a for-profit corporation, non-profit agency, or government entity) the more all stakeholders benefit. For more about what I-O psychologists do click here.

Undergraduate Students February 20, 2017

Career skills to increase your marketability

Employers value seven basic categories of skills in college graduates during the hiring process (Appleby, 2014), and the presence or absence of these skills also determines whether new college hires succeed or fail on the job (Gardner, 2007).

Undergraduate Students February 13, 2017

From Classwork to Applied Experience: Understanding the life of an Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology Graduate Student

The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s (SIOP) Visibility Committee recently wrote a blog introducing students to the rapidly growing field of Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology. As a quick reminder, I-O psychologists study behavior in the workplace and are employed in various academic and organizational settings. Perhaps you are now seriously considering graduate school in this field, and while knowing the benefits of a future career in I-O, still have some questions about what life might be like as an I-O student. We can help with that!

High School Students February 6, 2017

Dress to Impress: Does Suiting Up Bring More Confidence?

Think back to the days of playing dress-up—those moments when you slipped on your mother’s nicest dress or carefully slid your arms into your father’s fanciest jacket. Besides drowning in a sea of baggy cotton, what else did you feel? Did you walk with the grace of a ballerina? Experience a sudden rush of maturity? Notice a shift in your perspective? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’ve come to the right place!