This past semester, Emma Garber (‘25) and Devin Thompson (‘25), two of our undergraduate research assistants, were inducted into Psi Chi. Psi Chi is the international honor society in Psychology. Memberships are for life, and Psi Chi also provides scholarship, networking, and career opportunities for those interested in a career in Psychology. Read about their experience and what they’re looking forward to below!

Emma: "Devin and I were sworn in on December 8th at noon. It was really fun to meet the other members of our new Psi Chi chapter and to chat about what classes we will be taking in the spring. Joining Psi Chi was very important to me because it solidifies my commitment to pursuing a career in Psychology. 

I participate in many extracurricular activities and most of them do not directly relate to psychology in an obvious way. I am really excited to now be a part of a group that can help me gain more experience to achieve my goals. Being more involved in the psychology extracurriculars at Pacific has been a goal for me since I first applied. Some of my favorite moments have been spent with my psychology and ACT Lab peers. 

I can't wait to make more memories with Psi Chi! I am looking forward to our bi-weekly meetings with Psi Chi and Psychology Club members. Our meetings are always fun and interesting and I hope to take on a leadership role in the future." 

Devin: "I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join Psi Chi! Being part of this organization will help me further develop my professional growth and teach me about the many opportunities in the field of psychology. I’m also excited to get to know the other members and faculty.

Overall, I’m having a wonderful experience in the psychology department at University of the Pacific. Due to the smaller class size, I was able to make connections with multiple professors and even got the chance to start conducting research as soon as my freshman year. Working in the ACT lab has been the highlight of my Pacific experience! I've learned so much from both my peers and advisor Dr. Strickland-Hughes. I will forever be grateful to be part of this team!"

Congratulations Emma and Devin! You can learn more about Psi Chi by visiting psichi.org. 

Nancy Vo (Psychology '22) presented her departmental honors project, "Individual versus Collaborative Active Learning: Impact on Actual Learning, Perceived Learning, and Motivation," at the Psi Chi poster session during the 2022 Western Psychological Association conference. Vo won Psi Chi's Regional Research Award for her project, which had three main findings:

• The collaborative group had a slight increase in motivation and judgment of value of class time while the individual group had a slight decrease.
• Subjective knowledge increased for both groups when comparing pre to post.
• Although the collaborative group had a higher judgement of learning, their actual learning performance was relatively comparable to the individual group.

Congratulations Nancy!

On August 2, 2021, Pacific Newsroom published an article on the work that post-baccalaureate researcher and UOP alumna, Carmen Huang '20, conducted with Principal Investigator, Dr. Carla Strickland-Hughes. The article describes that virtual and remote work that Huang partook in, both in the Aging and Cognitive Training (LAB) and independently.

You can access and read the article here: ​https://www.pacific.edu/pacific-newsroom/pacific-alumna-will-present-research-remote-learning-national-convention.

Research assistant Carmen Huang conducted a two-part study on  the relationships between stress and student self-efficacy in the broader context of the COVID-19 pandemic for her Honors research project. Student self-efficacy is one's confidence to do well in school, and she was particularly interested in academic self-efficacy, one's confidence to perform well in academics, and online learning self-efficacy, one's confidence to perform well in an online class. She was also interested in examining social status, especially one's subjective social status, which is the social group that one identifies themselves as. Aside from student self-efficacy and subjective social status, she also examined their physiological states, such as stress and anxiety. 

She presented her initial findings for the first part of her study on Thursday, December 10th. You can learn more about the purpose. methodology, and findings of the study from the recorded presentation above!