MaryBeth Apriceno
Psychology/51吃瓜
Project: Perceptions of Aging in Grandparent Caregivers
Dr. Apriceno has an ongoing research project examining how providing childcare for their grandchildren may impact how older adults think and feel about themselves. It has been hypothesized that grandparents who provide 20+ hours of childcare to grandchildren weekly may feel burdened, tired, and overwhelmed, making them feel older and perceive their aging as occurring more rapidly. Meanwhile, grandparents who provide less than 20 hours of childcare to grandchildren weekly may feel socially connected and physically active and perceive their aging as occurring more slowly.
Research assistants will update an existing literature review on grandparent caregivers. This is very small literature, and very few studies have been performed. They will undergo training for research with human subjects. They will build the IRB-approved study in Qualtrics. This is a complicated survey, as it requires a lot of conditional display questions. Dr. Apriceno will be there to teach them how to use Qualtrics. They will recruit between 100 and 250 participants from local public places, such as supermarkets, malls, parks, etc. We will go to these public places as a research team and work in pairs to approach older women and ask them to participate in our study by taking a short survey. They will consent potential participants and supervise as participants complete our survey on the Psychology Department iPad. They will then clean and analyze the collected data with close help and guidance from Dr. Apriceno. They will complete an application to present a poster on this project to the next EPA conference (March 2026 in Boston, MA) and prepare the poster of their findings to be presented. Students can but are not required to attend the conference.
Student鈥檚 role
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Week 1: Literature review of grandparent caregiving and grandparents' self-perceptions of aging;
CITI training for research with human subjects; Practice presenting at lab meetings
Week 2: Build Qualtrics survey; Practice approaching participants; Practice presenting at lab meetings; Build a WordPress blog page on our research project
Weeks 3 and 4: Recruit participants and collect data; Update research project webpage
Week 5: Prepare a research talk on the project proposal in the style of FSC's Celebration of Scholarship; Present a presentation at a lab meeting with FSC senior research assistants in Dr. Apriceno's social psychology lab; Update the research project webpage
Weeks 6 and 7: Recruit participants and collect data; Update research project webpage
Week 8: Clean data; Make personal ResearchGate accounts and profiles; Update research project webpage
Week 9: Analyze data and interpret results; Write Method and Results sections of the manuscript
Week 10: Complete EPA poster presentation application; Create EPA poster; Update research project webpage
Student鈥檚 Criteria
I have mentored about 30 students in my 7 years of teaching. I mentored one RAM scholar previously, and I am mentoring another now. Each semester, I take on 4 to 6 psychology major seniors as research assistants for a semester-long assistantship through which they earn applied learning hours through PSY 442 and PSY 443.
Outcomes
Informal lab meeting presentations of progress; One formal presentation of the project proposal to senior research assistants and Psychology Department faculty; One application to a regional conference; Creating one poster presentation; Depending on findings, one manuscript for peer-reviewed publication
Schedule
Mondays and Wednesdays 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays between 10:30 and 12:30 PM
Type of job
In-Person
Applications