I am Intrigued with Psychological Research and College Instruction :: Graduate Admissions Essays

I am Intrigued with Psychological Research and College Instruction. Â   Having enjoyed psychology-related activities in both the academic and community settings, it is with enthusiasm that I pursue a career in clinical psychology. An important part of this pursuit is attending graduate school. In order to obtain the necessary knowledge and to define my areas of interest, I wish to enroll in a doctoral program in clinical psychology. Â   Throughout my undergraduate work I have engaged in a variety of activities to help prepare my for graduate study. One such activity is my involvement in research. This past summer I participated in a research project with a UNI professor, Dr. Augustine Osman. Our research involved the examination of the psychometric properties of the Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale (PASS) in a community sample. I performed basic data entry and ran SPSS-X programs for manova, correlation, and reliability. For two to three hours a day, over an eight week period, my research experience involved discussions on issues of psychometrics as well as learning how to transcribe and run several programs used in factor analysis. Through this experience I have also become familiar with the process of research revision and publication. In fact, I will be listed as a co-author upon publication of this work. Â   Currently, I am involved in an independent research project investigating sex-role stereotyping in college classrooms. My advisor, Dr. Jane Wong, has been supervising by progress. After completing background reading on this issue, I have decided to investigate the relationship between students' sex-typed characteristics. I have developed six scenarios in which I manipulated the sex-typed characteristics of the instructor. Students will be asked to complete the Bem Sex Role Inventory and the Traditional Egalitarian Sex Role Scale (TESR) prior to reading a scenario. After reading the scenarios they will be asked to rate the instructor using a rating form developed by Leventhal, Perry, and Abrami (1977). I hope to present my findings at a regional psychology conference and, if possible, submit the work for consideration for publication. Â   Aside from conducting research, I also have had the opportunity to experience the teaching aspects of psychology while serving as a teaching assistant for a Research Methods course and an Introduction to Psychology course. As a TA for Research Methods my responsibilities included supervising five students' research work. Specifically, I assisted the students in the library while they worked on a bibliography, summary and synthesis, and proposal project.