Supervising Faculty: Irene Frieze, PhD.
Contact: Dr. Irene Frieze, frieze@pitt.edu
Description of Research/Student Duties: I invite you to join me in an investigation of how students develop a feeling of home on campus, and related feelings such as homesickness and belongingness.
Earlier studies have shown that first year students often do begin to think of their dorm rooms as “home.” How does this happen? Does it relate to things they bring to their dorm rooms? Do new feelings of home on campus mean fewer feelings of homesickness for the family homes students have moved away from? How does homesickness relate to other aspects of the campus experience such as feeling accepted by other students and overall campus satisfaction?
There are a number of emotions, such as feeling comfortable, secure, relaxed, accepted, and not feeling lonely, that have been found to be correlated to feeling “at home.” Are these emotions associated with feeling at home in one’s dorm room? What about in other places on campus?
I hope to have a small lab group that explores these questions and related topics. Over the summer, we will review some of the existing theory and empirical research relating to these questions. Based on this, we will do some exploratory interviews and design a survey to be administered to Pitt students in the fall. Over the summer, each student will be asked to develop formal testable predictions or research questions that can be formally tested in the fall. Collection of data will occur in the fall. In the spring term, we will analyze our data and test student hypotheses.
Everyone will be asked to attend weekly group meetings and contribute to the overall group project in some way. Hopefully, each student will be able to present their findings as a research poster presented at Pitt or at a professional psychology meeting in the Spring. If our findings merit this, we will also formally submit papers based on our data for journal publication.
Those wishing to volunteer without formal credit are welcomed. A requirement for credit is to prepare a formal APA-style paper relating to the person’s hypotheses or research questions in the summer and fall and a poster discussing research findings in the spring.
Students can be involved in the Summer, Fall and Spring terms, but it works best if they start with the group in the summer, even if they have only limited time. Most students volunteer in the summer.
Requirements:
- 3.0 or higher GPA
- At least 12 credits in Psychology including Research Methods
- CITI certification for data collection
Terms offered: Summer and Fall 2024 and Spring 2025
Number of Students: up to 10
Meetings will be held primarily on zoom through the summer. We may have occasional in-person meetings in the fall and spring although regular meetings on zoom will continue.