Students in psychology 100 are in a very special position to take part in cutting edge research, said the director for the Research Experience Program at Ohio State.
“The program is a crucial way to help the students understand all aspects of psychological research,” said Thomas Nygen, who is also an associate professor of psychology at OSU.
The students are the reason the REP was implemented, Nygen said. It is the only way they can truly understand the work that goes into an experiment and get a firm grasp on the experimental process, he said.
REP is a program that requires psychology 100 students to partake in at least seven credit hours of experiments or write seven papers about psychology experiments going on around the world, Nygen said.
“About 90 percent of the students decide to do the experiments, and we think that is the best option for most of them,” said Terry Ransom-Flint, the senior REP coordinator and a graduate student in psychology.
The students who are advised to do the paper option are those who have trouble making the time for the experiments, such as athletes or nontraditional students, like those with full-time jobs, Ransom-Flint said.
“Some friends told me that doing the experiments would be much easier than doing the papers,” said Katie Henn, a sophomore in pre-nursing and a psychology 100 student.
Henn said participating in the experiments has helped her understand exactly what psychological research is. She is satisfied with her choice to do the experiments as opposed to the papers, even if they take up a lot of time, she said.
The experiments do take up a large amount of students’ time, and it is important they make sure to get in all of their experiments or their grade will suffer, Ransom-Flint said.
The feedback students give about the experiment is usually reflective of their performance in the course, Ransom-Flint said.
“Negative remarks about the experiments almost always come from students who are not doing well and waited until the last minute to fit the experiments in,” Ransom-Flint said. “They just don’t want to put in the time.”
There are plenty of experiments offered throughout the quarter Nygen said.
“There are roughly 6,000 psychology 100 students that come through the course each year, that averages out to roughly 21,000 hours worth of research assignments for each quarter,” Nygen said. “It is amazing that even with all the hours that are needed there is always a demand for students.”
Student interest in the experiments is also very important to REP said Ransom-Flint. The students can find descriptions of the experiments online and shop for an experiment that appeals to them, she said.
The students are not the only to benefit from REP, Nygen said.
“Ohio State is such a large place that the researchers are able to do experiments with a diverse ethnic background, even though most of them are of the same age,” Nygen said.
Concerns are often expressed about having all psychology 100 students as a source for the experiments, Nygen said. Some think that this can skew the results, he said
“It is important to approach that issue on a study-by-study basis,” Ransom-Flint said. “Not all experiments are suited to have just Psychology 100 students as the subjects.”
There are many studies going on through the OSU psychology department that do not use REP, said Nygen.
The studies performed through REP are often studies that can be generalized to a large age group besides those who are very young or very old, Nygen said.
“We usually see cognitive studies with REP, such as how one makes decisions,” Nygen said. “I would argue that almost all of those results could be generalized to the majority of the population.”
Virtually every university research institution has a program that is similar to this one, Nygen said.
“If you look at the research samples in most psychology journals, psychology 100 students are the most common sample you will see,” Ransom-Flint said.
Improving REP is always a concern for the directors, Ransom-Flint said.
“We have just recently installed a system that allows psychology 100 students with disabilities to participate in the experiments online,” Ransom-Flint said. “This helps those with learning disorders and physical disabilities.”
There have also been changes in the last couple years with registration for the experiments, Nygen said. The students are now able to access all the experiments online and keep track of where and when the experiment will take place, he said.
The online process is also helpful to the researcher because they can keep track of who should be at their experiment and what time they should be there, Ransom-Flint said.
“The biggest problem REP has is when students don’t show up for the experiment that they signed up for,” Nygen said. “With the online system the students are less likely to do this, because it keeps track of the experiments for them and keeps the researcher informed at the same time.”
Students are generally motivated to do well in the studies, Nygen said.
“If they wanted to, the students could come into the studies and give crazy, off-the-wall answers, but they don’t,” Nygen said. “They put in the effort to provide good, valid and reliable data, and this is very good for the researchers.”
“Our overall goal is to make REP beneficial to both the student and the researcher,” Nygen said. “In the end I would say we have reached our goal. I think our system works.”
