My Internship
My internship site works with children who have ADHD and this is looked at by using virtual reality.. We are still in the earlier stages of research, but we are hoping to set up phone screens soon to get new participants for the lab. I work with a fellow LHSI intern, Omar, as well as Dr. Hummer each week. The work we do is important because 2.4 million children from ages 6-11 and 3.3 million children from ages 12-17 are affected with ADHD.
Learning and Skills
I will use my skills of being creative and patient when working with my peers on test results and ideas that can benefit the study. I will use my hard work ethic to make sure I am doing the best I can. I will use my communication to be outgoing and give my input. I hope to learn how to communicate smoother in a professional setting.
I want to learn more about the psychology field as a whole. I have already learned much more than I thought I could about psychology and I have only been working for about a month. I also want to learn more about the research process and what that entails. There are a lot of steps to be taken before research can even be started so it has been very interesting learning about so far. I also want to learn more about data analysis, what data looks like in a research paper, and how to use excel in a more efficient manner.
I am most excited about seeing how the virtual reality headsets correlates to learning more about the children we are studying. One of my main tasks as an intern so far was been checking the VR builds every week when I come in. I think it will be very fascinating to see how a small part I play in the lab can help us learn more about these children.
I feel confident in my ability to communicate when my schedule with Tom. As a student-athlete, my schedule can change easily and I am very thankful for Tom being so receptive of that. I also think that I work hard and try to get all of my work done in a timely fashion. I would like to grow in my communication even more in the sense of asking as many questions as I need to to learn. I also want to learn how to participate in journal club more effectively, which means having a better understanding of research papers and understand how to have a discussion about it.
This internship is very connected to my research methods of psychology lecture and lab! Research methods of psychology is a class that helps explain the process of experiments and the many different ways to conduct research. This internship helps me with that class because I learn how to actively apply the definitions I am learning in class in a work environment. For example, there was a day that Dr. Hummer asked if I knew what a regression was, I replied that I didn't, and the very next day I ended up learning it in class. In my lab, we are writing a research paper in groups that we will have to present at the end of the year. Journal club in my internship has helped me understand how to write a research paper more effectively, which makes a huge impact in my class.
Some of my favorite experiences so far as an intern has been learning how to look at surveys and understand the data behind it. I was in charge of creating an excel sheet of data from the Video Game Motivations and Desires Survey, which basically is a survey that helps understand why children play video games and what their motive behind it is. It was very cool to look at what that survey meant and how it could be applied to my internship.
My work has contributed to larger projects and goals because I am helping my team with tasks and taking some of the work off their plate. Because of that, we are all working together for a common goal. The work I do for the VR build will help our team decide which build to use when recruitment starts. The data I compile helps Dr. Hummer understand where this project needs to go moving forward, which he may not have had time to do if I didn't help.
I have been motivated to do my work and ask questions as needed, especially with the LHSI project coming up. I seek guidance from Dr. Hummer just to make sure I am doing the right thing because I have never conducted research like this before. This is also the first time I have had to juggle a sport, school, and work before so I just want to increase my time managament of that. I am pretty on top of it now, but I do believe there is always room for improvement. After LHSI I will continute to put myself in situations where I can help intern in a lab so I can build on my skills. I will be a senior next semester so that will most likely take place in the form of a capstone.
The Workspace
As a professional and teammate, it is important to me to communicate issues, thoughts, and ideas as they come up, be receptive of others ideas, set boundaries and expectations of tasks, and stay organized. I think it is important to set specific deadlines so that other workers know exactly when to have assignments done by. It helps everyone to stay on the same page and know what is expected of them. I also think it is important to invest in others outside of work and get to know who they are other than workers. I want to grow in knowledge and feel confident that I know what I am talking about. I also want to contribute more and know that every answer doesn't have to be correct.
I have learned from working with Dr. Hummer, Omar, and the medical student interns. Omar is on a pre med school track so it has been very nice learning about the classes he is taking and hearing what he thinks about the research we are doing. Dr. Hummer is very smart and it has been a pleasure working for him. I have learned a lot about psychology, the way research is conducted, and all the details in between from him. He also answers all of my questions and is very helpful and understanding. The medical students have been around for 4 weeks at a time as they go through their rotations. They have been a very helpful addition to the lab because they bring a little more knowledge to the table and are very hard workers.
My internship experience has been different than what I thought when I started in a very positive way. This has been my first big experience working in the field that I want to go into when I am older so I did not know what to expect. The environment is very warm and welcoming. I have never had an issue expressing something that I did not understand, saying what I think, or asking for time off due to soccer or sickness. The environment is very friendly and understanding and that came as a nice surprise.
Being around people with more knowledge and experience than me has been a gift. I truly love learning from people who know more than me because I feel like people should always strive to continue learning throughout life. I feel like they impact my attitude because it reinstates that fact that you can learn at any age. I feel like working with my peers has allowed me to have more intellectual conversations. I have discussed topics of psychology and my LHSI project and the conversations have been very fulfilling. They make me want to act more professionally in a work environment.
I think my lab has a workspace of collaboration and is very welcoming. Everyone is always willing to guide someone who needs it and in this case as the intern, it is me. We always ask how each others weekends went, which I think that is very important to create a good work environment. We've never had the conversation, but I think we value working hard and showing up for one another through the work we do. That is exactly what I would seek out in a work environment too, which makes me love this lab even more. I wish I could see the people in this lab more when I work, but I know we all have different schedules.
Success and Challenges
I feel like I have been successful in asking Dr. Hummer for help when I don't understand something and trying to stay organized with my work. With the schedule I had in the fall with school and soccer, I tried to stay the most organized, yet engaged I could and I thought I tried my best in the regard. The Video Game Motivation and Desires survey has been one of the most challenging experiences thus far at my internship because I am not too familiar with Excel. However, Dr. Hummer was very helpful and I have learned a lot of skills that I did not know before. I call that a success and a challenge because I turned my challenge into a win. Another challenge is understanding research papers, but the more we do, the more I start understanding them. I have taken the time to thoroughly read the papers and jot down anything I did not understand to ask for later.
After working at the lab for a full semester, I would say another success of mine is excel sheets. I used to not be able to use excel well and I would get lost when trying to perform new tasks. Now, I feel more confident in excel tasks, even though I know there is much more I can still learn. I also am successful still with time managment and fitting in lab with my schedule. That can also be a challenge though. This semester soccer has died down a bit in terms of traveling, but I still have it 6 days a week on top of 18 credit hours. Life can be a bit stressful, but I do my best when trying to balance it all.
Project Summary
I am working in Dr. Tom Hummer's Media and Brain Development Lab. As part of this work, we are using virtual reality to understand how children with ADHD understand other people's thoughts and feelings depending on the environment around them. I have been tasked with creating recruitment flyers, checking virtual reality builds weekly, and helping sort through data when needed. In addition, since the start of my internship, I have been working to study the Video Game Motivations and Desires Scale to quantify children's motivations to play video games. This survey contains 30 questions and 10 subscales, like Customization and Social Interaction for example. The work on this scale inspired my research question that I wanted to investigate further for my LHSI project. I wanted to see if there was any relationship between how much children were motivated by Violent Reward in video games and their family living situation. To test this idea, I am examining whether responses on the Family Environment Scale (FES), which measures family dysfunction, are related to Violent Reward motivations. This information will aim to fill a gap in understanding what causes a child to play video games for violent reasons.
