REU Site: Summer Program in Applied Psychology

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Summary: The Summer Program in Applied Psychology provides student participants with research training in human factors, health, and industrial/organizational psychology. The program objectives are to increase talented students' interest, understanding, and commitment to research, science, and scientific careers. These objectives should increase and sustain student participation in research, professional activities, and entry into graduate programs. As part of this REU Site, students present the results of their research at the Conference on Applied Psychology, which includes presentations from invited speakers. Follow-through annual activities include travel support for additional professional presentations, collaborative publications, and advising to support applications to graduate programs. Intellectual Merit.The students recruited for this REU Site have strong backgrounds in mathematics, biological science, social science, and/or industrial engineering, exhibit potential interest and commitment to science and research, and are selected mainly from non-research colleges and universities. The main intellectual merit of this program is to identify and evaluate techniques that 1) increase student understanding of science and science careers, 2) increase student participation in professional activities, and 3) encourage student application to graduate programs in science. Program activities include a supervised program of collaborative research with eleven participating faculty from the Psychology and Industrial Engineering Departments. Support activities include course work in research methods in applied psychology, seminars, site-visits, and the Conference in Applied Psychology. Research partners in industry, government, and education collaborate via participation in support activities and research projects.Broader ImpactsThe broader impact of the program is to promote undergraduate research at the institutional level through the visible success of the program, to provide a model of effective undergraduate science education through professional national dissemination of the program characteristics and outcomes, to promote participation by underrepresented groups, and to extend the benefits of the program to the public and private sector through partnerships with defense, industry, and government entities.