In the second semester of my junior year, I
joined the Honors Program in Psychology. As part of the program, our class had
the opportunity to have professors in the many subfields of psychology come
into our classroom and explain the research they do in their field. One of the
professors that came in was Dr. Adam Winsler who discussed his work in Applied
Developmental Psychology. One of Dr. Winsler’s many areas of research that
caught my interest was his work with the Miami-Dade County Public School
System.
After arranging a meeting outside of class
with Dr. Winsler, we decided to work on a collaborative project involving the
data that he has on the Miami-Dade School System. One subset of data that
really caught my interest was on school suspension. After further discussing
the data on suspension rates, Dr. Winsler suggested that I look at predictors
of school suspension.
This project has increased my desire to want
to work in schools. Through extensive research on school suspension, I have
begun to learn how frequently this punishment is utilized. Each time this
punishment is used, students miss out on valuable instruction time in the
classroom. My sincere hope is that through my future involvement in the school
system, I can work to decrease the frequency of the punishment and allow all
students to get the most out of their time in school.
On a weekly basis, I spend ten to fifteen
hours researching existing literature on school suspension and writing
preliminary drafts of my honors thesis. I have weekly meetings with my advisor
to review my drafts and to evaluate my status on the project.
This week, I have begun to work with the data
set that I will be analyzing. Beginning to work with this data set, has given
me the opportunity to refresh my Microsoft Excel skills. This project has given
me the opportunity to grow as a researcher and I truly hope that my findings
will be able to further research in the field of psychology.
