Philosophy

A Little History

I graduated with my PhD in cognitive psychology in 1996, after writing a dissertation that probed the mechanism by which asking people questions influences their memories for later-presented information.

I finished my PhD as a part-time student, because I had already started working in the British Columbia college system as a psychology instructor. Having seen how hard my PhD supervisors were working at research, and also knowing a bit about myself, I decided that teaching was of more interest to me than research. So I didn't bother with trying to publish my dissertation and immersed myself in teaching for many years, first in BC and then in Alberta.

A few years back, I decided it was time to start asking research questions again. At heart, I'm curious about a lot of stuff, so doing some lab work was appealing. Also, with the development of the Bachelor of Arts program at MRU, some students were needing experience in a research lab in order to help them apply to graduate programs. So it seemed like a good idea to get back to research.

I hit two problems, however. The first was that I didn't attract many students to the lab with projects in memory and attention. There are reasons that people are misguided in that way, but that's a rant for another time. :-) The second problem was that I didn't have a lot of early success - several projects failed to replicate published effects, and other projects produced results that were unstable or difficult to work with in other ways.

So I got frustrated with my own projects and decided I may as well let students run their own, at least much of the time. There are now more students in the lab, doing a broader range of inquiry, than I would have imagined possible a few years ago.

What You Can Expect To Do If You Join The Lab

The purpose of the lab is to provide meaningful developmental experiences for student researchers. Most people in the lab aim to complete the honours program and go on to graduate school. To that end, a typical progression as you move through the lab would be

FIRST YEAR OR SO (research assistant)

1. Start learning basic research skills such as how to do a literature search, how to find resources for a study, etc.

2. Complete the tricouncil research ethics tutorial

3. Take junior stats and research methods courses

4. Help out with studies in the lab by running participants or doing other necessary tasks

LATER YEARS (student researcher)

1. Develop your own line of inquiry under my supervision/mentorship.

2. Take research results to conferences. Possibly produce publishable results, though that requires a fair amount of luck.

3. Complete more senior stats and research methods courses

4. Complete an honours thesis (usually under someone else to prevent both intellectual inbreeding and a weak referee list for grad school)

Note that this kind of developmental pathway takes time. It's not at all unusual for it to take 2+ years from the time you first join the lab until you might have something you could take to a poster session at a conference. So, in general, I'm interested in incoming students who are still early in the program. The earlier the better, really, as long as you have some kind of academic record that shows your potential. All of the students who have entered my lab recently have done so with 2 or more years left before graduation. Many joined in their first year or shortly thereafter.

UPDATE: Recently (Spring 2022) I have begun taking in a few students with less time left in their program of study. The reason for doing so is that some of the lab projects require assistance, and there are many senior students looking for opportunities to help. Restricting entrance to the lab to first-year or second-year students is a disservice both to the senior students needing experience and to my lab students trying to run projects. With senior students, I do not have an expectation that they will reach the project-development stage. Those students interested in research-related careers will normally spend a year working in the lab and then complete honours work with someone else.

What I Want The Lab To Be (And Not Be)

I want the lab to be

• a place that helps students move toward their life and career goals. Few people are spontaneously attracted to volunteering in a research lab. You are probably looking to volunteer as part of some larger goal you have. I won't set goals for you, and if your goals are better suited to a different environment, I'll let you know. But if I think I can help without overloading myself, I will. That's the primary reason why the lab exists.

• a place where mentorship can occur. I meet with lab students on a regular basis and we talk through choices about research projects, academic programs, school/lab/life balance, and lots of other things. I'm in no way wise, but I've been around academia for rather a long time, so I can often suggest ideas/opportunities/considerations you might not have thought of. I can also try and flag potential problems you haven't recognized.

• a place where I support rather than direct. At heart, I'm probably more suited to teaching/coaching than I am to building a research empire focussed on some narrow topic. My skill set allows me to help other people take on challenges and grow in their own knowledge and experience. So that's what I prefer to do.

• a place where we can do some really fun stuff. Students ask some really interesting questions - ones that I wouldn't have thought of on my own. On the other hand, I know a fair bit about analysis techniques, and it's often the case that we can do some really interesting analysis with the data collected in the lab. Provided you are ready and willing to become the content expert on a topic, I'm happy to be the technical expert.

• a place where high-functioning and ambitious students can meet like-minded students. The path is always a little easier when it is shared with a friend.

I do not want the lab to be

• a place where students feel like they are cogs in a machine. I'm not here to churn out research. I'm here to help you follow your own path. There are labs, more commonly at larger institutions, in which undergrad assistants are virtually exploited for their labour. That should never be the case in my lab.

• a place where projects are put before people. I'm not cut out to be a slave driver. If you need time for personal or academic reasons, that's fine. The only caveat would be related to stuff in the "Commitment" section below.

• a place that has a negative impact on your life or your schooling. See the excerpt from the lab rules.

Commitment

Over the last few years a common question has come up from people inquiring about the lab. "How much time is involved?" The answer is - it's variable, but also under your control.

I've worked with students putting in anywhere from 2 hours to 10 or more hours per week. In my experience, progress tends to slow to a halt if you are putting in less than about 5 hours per week on average. So that probably forms a good lower bound. However, there are two things to note about that.

The first thing is that, like much of life, you will get stuff out of your lab experience in proportion to what you put in. Putting together your own project takes time and effort on many fronts. I'm not going to do it all for you. So the more effort you put in, the more you'll have to show for it out the far end. (On the other hand, if you start putting in obscene amounts of time, I'll tell you to get a life.)

The second thing is that the 5-hour figure is on average. There will be weeks (especially around midterm time) when you drop below that, with encouragement from me. But those will be balanced against other weeks when you are above 5 hours (such as doing a lit review while developing your project). The very, very few people who have had an unsuccessful time in the lab were mostly putting in low numbers of hours.

Lab Rules

This isn't the full list - just the first two rules. I'll share the full list if you are considering joining the lab. (The other rules aren't scary, but they are perhaps expressed a bit casually and not meant for broad public consumption.)

1. Life comes first.

2. School comes second.

3. ...

Joining The Lab

In the end, taking someone into the lab is a multi-year commitment on my part, and I need to make sure having you in the lab makes sense, both for me and for you. So you'll need to contact me (jctaylor@mtroyal.ca) and set up a time to chat. I will always try to make time for a first chat, because even if I can't help you, I may be able to point you in the direction of someone who can. I've directed multiple students toward other opportunities that were better suited to them.

In general, the people I try to absorb into the lab (yes, we are like the Borg - resistance is futile!) have the following:

• an interest in going to grad school, or at least in keeping that option open. If you are intending to finish your undergraduate degree and then directly find employment that will last you until you retire, you should probably be finding activities (volunteer or paid) out in the community instead of working in my lab. The return on your investment of time will be greater, because you'll be making connections in the community of people you'll need to tap into to find permanent work.

• a fair amount of time left in the degree. At least two years and ideally more. The lab is about long term development, not stuff to quickly add to your resume. If you are short on time, my lab is likely not the place you want to be. I can sometimes find work for people with less time available, but it usually won't reach the project-development level.

• a solid academic record (or at least good indicators that one is developing). Many graduate programs require both research experience and strong grades for admission. If your grades aren't where they need to be, fixing those (or the life circumstances that are dragging them down) should be your first priority. See the lab rules, above! It's true that "C's get degrees" and that, if one has nonacademic skills that appeal to employers, it might be easy to find work with weak grades in your undergraduate record. But, by and large, C's don't get graduate degrees.

If you have the qualities above, I'd definitely be interested in hearing from you. If you don't have the qualities above, but think you might be able to contribute to the lab in a way that would be good both for you and for the lab, I'm okay to have a first meeting to chat, if you'd like. (In short, I don't want my lack of imagination to rule out your participation in the lab, if you can sell me on an idea.)