Blog #23: Final Lesson Reflection

Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your block presentation and/or your senior project?

The aspect of my presentation I was most proud of was the fact that I was able to pull off conducting a small scale experiment on one unexpecting student while the others observed and I was able to explain it after. In the experiment I got Leslie Salazar to conform and say the wrong answer in front of the class just because she hear the other classmates say it. When I finally revealed how I manipulated her answers, I saw the entire class nod their head or say "ohhhh!" when they realized what I did and to have surprised then and impressed them really made me proud. I love the fact that I was able to get such an interested reaction out of them It made me super excited to continue.

Questions to Consider

What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation?

I would give myself an AE because It was evident that I knew everything about my topic and was able to engage everyone in it, Im definitely proud of my performance.

On my Overall project, I would give myself an AE because all of my requirements were met and I also went beyond in doing through research and really well on components like presentations for the project.

What worked  for you?

Im so glad that all the research in this has allowed me to really become an expert in the topic and inspire me to continue to pursue it. It also gave me the resources I need for the future like a mentor to help guide me in continuing to work in Social psychology. The long presentations also helped make me more and more comfortable and skilled in teaching classes difficult concepts and even making it interesting to them.

What didn't work?

For me, I had a hard time smoothly citing my sources, mainly because I felt like research count required way too many sources so it was confusing what to do. I would have worked harder in trying to incorporating them better through my presentation so it seemed a lot more credible

Finding Value

The senior project has helped me decide my Major for San Francisco State University that I plan to attend next year. My independent component 1 class was actually credits transferable for my major, and It helped me now realize that this IS something I would love to pursue and what specific aspect I would like to, and how I AM capable of doing well in it. It was a great inspiration and motivation.

blog #21: Exit Interview

1. What is your essential question and what are your answers? What is your best answer and why?

My essential question asks what is the best way to conduct social psychology research to study different behavioral patterns. The three answers I've come up with to address that are: Generalizable experiments, ethical experiments, and experiments with lear IV DVs and few confounding variables. My best answer was clearly the answer with the most detail so to conduct experiments with clear independent variables and dependent variables and eliminate most confounding variables to study behavior.

2. What process did it take you to arrive at this answer?

My first mentor really helped a lot with coming up with it once i compared many existing experiments and research in her class. But it wasn't until much more research and talk with my new mentor that I came to the conclusion that it is the best answer because it accounts for a lot more than the other answers and it results in stronger theories and can be proven physically.

3. What problems did you face? how did you resolve them?

A big problem at first what just the scheduling when I could go to my mentor because it was such inconvenient hours. Then a huge problem that came along was when she emailed me that I wouldn't be allowed to sit in on any more of her classes because something with the board. However she was still helpful in helping me get hours and directed me to another campus where I got a new mentor and was able to sit in on there class. It was a big problem but i resolved it quite quickly and it didn't set me back much at all.

4. What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My first source would have to be my first mentor Dr Viviane Seyrenian because she taught experimental psych and it led me to the best way to design an experiment given that it was an entire class dedicated to that. And she was super helpful in talking me through to come up with the question and finding the answer through putting together and analyzing existing work. My second source is my First independent component because it was a very thurough class at CalPoly Pomona on Brain Mind and Behavior and how to study and understand them as a science. The class guided me to a lot of the readings that also helped in the research I used to answer my question. 

Blog #19: Independent Component 2

 a. I, Ana Nieto, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 33 Hours of work

b. Veronica Scott my professor and mentor as well as old mentor

c. Done. 

d. I have attended each meet up of the course including completing assignments and participating in class discussion as it enrolled. However I could not actually be enrolled because of the high number of credits I have already in GEs.

Evidence:

 
 

 

 

Applied

Being allowed to sit in on this course and participate with the class definitely gave me a better feel for my senior project. The other classes I've taken and sat in on helped build the foundation and let me know what my topic is really well. But this course applied the information and prior knowledge I have on my topic in a bunch of different fields and scenarios I had never given much thought to. The way the class was structured gave me a feel for my lesson plan and I liked the way that all the information was applied, I have a better understanding now on how to apply all the theories for my own presentation and make it more interesting and easy to pick up for my audience.

Blog #17: Answer 3

Essential Question: 

What is the best way to conduct social psychology research to study different behavioral patterns?

Answer 3:

The best way to conduct social psychology research to study human behavior is by conducting ethical studies.

Details to support my answer 3:

• Making sure a study is ethical is important in the long-run for all participants.
• It ensures safety of those involved.
• Creating an ethical experiment while also trying to test certain things is very difficult while also trying to make it truly test a theory.
• Ensuring that all experiments are ethical is difficult to do and sometimes inhibits us from testing certain theories entirely.

The research:

McLeod, S. A. (2007). Psychology Research Ethics. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Ethics.html

Concluding statement:

Social psychologists share the common goal that is their research is gathered in efforts to help people. By harming anyone in the process of gathering that information is strictly unprofessional and because it is unethical it should not be allowed. 

Blog #16: Answer 2

1. What is your EQ?

What is the best way to conduct social psychology research to study different behavioral patterns?

2. What is your first answer?

The best way to conduct social psychology research to learn about behaviors is to conduct experiments with clear independent and dependent variables and as few confounding variables as possible.

3. What is your second answer?

The most effective way to conduct social psychology research is to create social psychology experiments with generalizable results.

4. List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application for each.

I'm not sure how to go about this because the phrasing is a little confusing. But my the reasoning behind my answer 2 is because while I have a lesson on my first answer, I realized that a big problem when coming up with this research is confounding variables (or variables in the experiment that may affect the causation). But when I tried taking all the confounding variables out of the experiments, it ended up making the experiment not a real life situation so the outcome of the experiment is no longer generalizable and you can't apply it as a theory on how people work in real-life. So I realized that making sure the findings of your study have "real-world" applications is important in conducting the research and studying social psychology which is why I made that my second answer.

5. What source best supports your answer?

http://www.iwh.on.ca/wrmb/generalizability

6.  What other source supports your answer?

I learned a lot about the importance of causation in studies through my mentor. She also taught me that although a lot of studies are interesting, if they're not done correctly, they can't be applied to real-life therefor we didn't really learn much from them. 

7. Tie this together with a concluding thought. 

Good research is something that we can learn from and apply to every day life. If the study is too specific, or is to confined to a lab setting, it loses generalizability and we can no longer depend on those findings to represent the real-world population and everyday life rendering it almost useless. That's why I've decided that a good answer to my EQ would be to conduct an experiment with generalizable results. 

Blog #14: Independent Component 1

 

 1.Literal

 A. I Ana Nieto affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 42 hours of work.
B. PSY 210 Mind, Brain, and Behavior class at Cal Poly Pomona.
C. Updated hours.
D. Each day of the course I listened and participated in lecture taking notes and studying for the 3 midterms we had. I also had to read the textbook chapters in Brain, Mind, and Behavior that went with the course. One final thing I had as an assignment was a 6 page paper review of the book The Ethical Brain and how I tied it to real life and what I learned from the class.

2. Interpretive:

From taking this class, I've learned a lot about appreciating psychology as a science and behavior as a result of interaction with external stimuli as well as neurological reactions. 
( I don't have a transcript of the class to provide because the counselor did not enter it as a Young Scholars class, apparently, and I received a letter from CalPoly saying that there is a hold on the class because I "owe $1,555" to pay for it. And I cannot access my blackboard until it is payed.) But here are some emails between me and the professor Dr. Larry Goldman. 
 

3. Applied:

Taking this course has helped me to understand the way that external stimuli can affect us internally and that can in-turn affect our emotions and our behavior. Because my project is more of the Social Psychology and the way that our behaviors are just based on our attitudes but this course gave me the foundation to what chemically builds our behavior. For example Social Psychology might be able to depict depression as a result of being not around people and fulfilling their purpose as a social being. But this course gave me the understanding to look at the other side to these Social psychological findings at think of the observations as more of a hard science.

Blog #13: Lesson 2 Reflection

1a. What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

The part of my lesson that I was most proud of was being able really get the point across to the audience that social psychology is incredibly interesting and fun and it has taught us a bunch of really cool things about society. I was really proud of the fact that people seemed to be interested in the activity and each of the examples I gave sparked reaction. I was so proud that I was able to get everyone involved in my topic with the all the information itself.

2a. What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation?

AE

2b. Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

I feel that I deserve an AE for the lesson because first of all, I met all the requirements for a passing grade. I also met the requirements for a P like sources, interesting information, a prop, noting my mentor, an engaging activity, an obvious grasp on my topic and a lot of enthusiasm. I also exceeded these with what i can best describe was an an informative pre-activity that backed up my answer and EQ which was a walk through of the Almost Identical experiment and their variables.

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

Something that worked for my presentation was all the examples I showed. Each experiment really allowed me to see what things everyone found interesting, they all responded well and were genuinely interesting that gave me a lot of energy to work on for the rest of the presentation.

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

Something that didn't really work for the lesson was that i was having major technical difficulties beforehand and I was fortunate enough to have Edwin help me set it up again even though I was running behind schedule.

5. What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

I have a couple ideas for the next answer about making a good experiment. Im thinking it might be to be sure that it is an ethical experiment. Another possible answer would be to make sure the experiment is applicable to real world situations.