Originally published: . Volume 10, No. 4. Source pages: 11.
[Editor's Note: We reported on researchers in our March issue and this article continues that report.]
Louisiana researchers are presenting at the Southwestern Psychological Association (SWPA) conference on April 5–7 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They will join in the conference theme of, "Psychology: From the Lab to the Labyrinth: Bridging the gap between the highly controlled conditions of the laboratory and the uncontrolled conditions of the real world."
Excerpts from researchers' abstracts are included below.
The Lake Charles Research Group is also presenting several projects. This group includes Burton Ashworth, Lacy Hitt, and Grishma Poudel from the University of Louisiana Monroe.
Also in the Lakes Charles research group are Lawrence Dilks, Kimberly Hutchinson, and Billie Myers from Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, Sandra Viggiani from Lake Charles Clinical Trials, and Reshmi Maharjan.
Their presentations included the following:
"A Pilot Study to Augment Decision Making Process in Choosing an Academic Major." The purpose of this study was to examine whether engagement with an advisor reduces student discomfort when choosing an academic major for higher education. One hundred thirty high school students from Northeast (NE) and Southwest (SW) Louisiana public schools participated in the project.
The effect sizes found in students from both SW and NE High Schools suggest that the impact of advising is an important factor in assisting students with determining an academic major when moving into higher education.
The researchers from the group are also presenting, "Discriminant Validity of Attention & Concentration Exercises."
Cognitive rehabilitation is defined as a systematic and functionally oriented service of therapeutic activities and therapy focuses on regaining the independence of the individual’s physical and mental status.
The researchers design of this study was to assess the convergent validity between four different attention and concentration exercises and existing validated instruments. Researchers conducted Factor Analyses to assess the internal consistency of attention and concentration exercises, administered one week apart.
The results suggest the four exercises may have a positive influence on patients undergoing cognitive rehabilitation.
A final presentation will be, "Assessment for the Reliability of Attention and Concentration Exercise." Cognition refers to our ability to make sense of the environment. Cognitive processes depend on attention and concentration factors. Attention operates by modulating information processing in a goal-consistent manner. Concentration is a sustained performance task with the purpose of achieving a desired level of focus. There is a direct relationship between attention, concentration and cognitive rehabilitation.
The effect sizes suggest cognitive therapists serve the patient better by administering difficult exercises. While both exercises, the easy and difficult elicit favorable results, difficult components seem to exert a higher therapeutic effect on the traumatized brain.
While it may seem more appropriate to use very easy tasks with persons experiencing traumatic brain injury, to maximize return to baseline, it may be wise to administer difficult tasks in smaller increments to reduce anxiety or frustration.
Yong Dai, Professor and Chair at Louisiana State University Shreveport, and Qing Zeng from U. of Texas, will present, "Self-esteem of High School Seniors: A National Survey."
Using a national survey of students in 12th- Grade, this study examined the self-esteem of high school seniors. With the sample being large, current, and nationally representative of the population, the conclusions drawn from this study should help us to obtain a current picture of the situation concerning the self-esteem of American high school seniors.
The most interesting finding of this study is that compared to gender and race, religious involvement appears to have the largest impact on how adolescents evaluate themselves. The more religiously involved, the more likely the adolescents tend to evaluate themselves in a positive way.
This finding seems to point out that most religious institutions teach people to have positive images of themselves, and such positive teaching may help to increase adolescents' self-esteem.
Kevin Yaudes, Assistant Professor at McNeese State University, and Haden Cooley from McNeese State University are presenting "What Traits Predict Individual and Team Performance?: A Pilot Study."
To date, few studies have examined a wide range of traits as possible predictors of success in athletes. The purpose of this pilot study is to investigate which psychological traits predict success in a competitive individual or team environment.
Traits under investigation are Organizational Citizenship Behavior, task and ego orientation, defined as a predisposition to judge success by norm referenced values and/or self-referenced values respectively, and achievement goal orientation. Participants will complete a competitive task as individuals and as a team.
This pilot data will provide valuable information regarding the impact of these specific traits on performance in an individual and team setting. The results of this research will inform the direction of planned research regarding these traits in a sport setting. These traits will be examined as predictors of athletic success across a number of sports, as defined by statistics commonly used to assess success in each sport.
Dr. Paula Varnado-Sullivan, Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator, Psychology Department at Southeastern Louisiana University, shared this poster of their presentation having to do with fake news. She and her team used a neutral article and changed the masthead to reflect FOX News, CNN, and NPR. Dr. Varnado-Sullivan said she was struck by the number of students who were ambivalent about the concepts.
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