DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

The Psychology Department supervises field placements for majors interested in applying their knowledge of psychology to real-world situations for course credit (PSYCH 487).  Students are supervised by both a Psychology Department faculty member and an on-site supervisor.  These experiences provide insight into the types of employment students may achieve with a Bachelor's degree in psychology.  Field Training is also excellent experience for students intending to pursue graduate training in such areas as counseling, clinical psychology, school psychology, and social work.  Field placements include a range of human service agencies, schools, crisis intervention programs and correction facilities.  Students are encouraged to take this course during their junior year.

Nursing Home Visitation Program

An option for placement in Field Training is the Nursing Home Visitation Program.  Students are encouraged to participate in this well-known project founded by a UW-W student and a psychology professor, Dr. Clifford O'Beirne.The N.H.V.P has been a part of UW-Whitewater campus' efforts in community service for over 35 years, and has averaged over 200 hours per week.  This is one of the largest programs in the nation that goes to nursing homes.  To date, UW-W students have made over 175,000 visits to nearby nursing homes.For more information on the Nursing Home Visitation Program.

Independent Study (PSYCH 498, 498R) and Senior Thesis (PSYCH 499) are courses in which students work closely with a faculty member on a research project.  Whether students should have certain background, such as having taken statistics will depend on the specific project.  Students are always encouraged to contact their interested faculty to learn about possible research opportunities.  A good way to get started on accumulating research experience is to volunteer to help with faculty's research if they have never worked with the faculty before.

Students may apply for financial support for their research (e.g., to purchase materials, travel) through the Undergraduate Research Program.  Students who participate in this program will have the opportunity to present their research on UW-Whitewater's Undergraduate Research Day.  Students interested in undergraduate research are encouraged to plan for enrollment in these courses by discussing the possibility with their academic advisor as early as possible.

Students may work with faculty on research in a number of different ways.  Many students opt to take Independent Study (PSYCH 498) in which they work under the direction of a faculty member on research topics that interest them.  These hands-on experiences may include literature review, data collection, analysis, or writing up papers or manuscripts.  Students in the Undergraduate Research Program may enroll in Independent Study - Undergraduate Research (PSYCH 498R).  These courses are repeatable (in combination with one another) for a maximum of 6 units in the major and 12 units in the degree.

Some students choose to complete Senior Thesis projects (PSYCH 499) that involve a faculty advisor and a committee of faculty project reviewers.  Students engage in a critical review or an experimental study of a topic of interest to them under the supervision of an honors thesis committee of the Psychology Department.  The course is repeatable for a maximum of 6 credits in the major and 12 units in the degree.

There are numerous scholarship opportunities available to students, both through the university, the College of Letters and Sciences and the Psychology Department. To make life a little easier, all of the university's scholarship applications and requirement listings are available online.

• Larry & Mary Lee Anding Psychology Scholarship
• Huang-Christner Psychology Scholarship
• Paula Poorman & Susan Simmons Family Psychology
• The Amy Krueger Memorial Scholarship
• Dr. Richard D. Kelley Psychology Scholarship

• Song Family School Psychology Scholarship
• Barbara Ann Hersko Scholarship

• APA Style A brief video on APA style plus UW-W Library links to APA-style guides.
• Center for Students with Disabilities UW-W Center for Students with Disabilities website.
• Course Catalog UW-W course catalog listing current course offerings and schedules.
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction Website of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction for those interested in the Education Program.
• McNair Program UW-W McNair Program that prepares first-generation and multicultural students for doctoral study.
• Nursing Home Visitation Program A program founded by a UW-W student and psychology professor, Dr. O'Beirne, in which students volunteer at local nursing homes and aging communities.
• Project Assist UW-W Center for Students with Disabilities Project Assist program for those in need of academic support.
• Psi Chi UW-W chapter of the International Honor Society in psychology.
• Scholarships UW-W scholarships website.
• Tutoring Center UW-W Academic Support Center for those in need of tutoring or interested in being a tutor.
• Tutoring for Psychology Courses UW-W Academic Support Center offers tutoring for many of the Psychology courses offered at UW-Whitewater.
• Undergraduate Research Program UW-W program designed to fund and support undergraduate research projects.

• A Career Decision Tree for Psychology Majors A decision tree that points students in the direction of what careers may be most appropriate for their interests and skills.  
• Career Toolkit Find information about careers.
• Careers in Science and Engineering A short book available to read online that discusses developing skills and meeting career goals for those interested in a career in science and/or engineering.
• Finding a Career with a Bachelor's in Psychology Information about how to find a career in psychology at the Bachelor's level.
• Good News for Bachelor's Grads An APA Monitor Article on Job prospects of a psychology major.
• Job Search As you look for summer or after-graduation jobs, here is a link to help you.
• Occupational Outlook Handbook  The resource about careers in the U.S. put together by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• Online Psychology Career Center Provides career and graduate school information and tips and a list of current job openings.
• Career Services UW-W Career and Leadership Development website provides information about majors and careers.
• Career Services for Psychology Majors UW-W Career Resources for psychology majors outlining skills acquired through the major, psychology career options, and employers that have hired UW-W psychology students.

• Breaking Down the GRE - A guide to the GRE for psychology students
• Graduate School  This page has resources to help you in your effort to get into graduate and professional school.
• GRE Preparation  Provides information about the GRE, how to prepare for the GRE, and test dates and locations.
• GRE Preparation Tips  This page has resources to help you in your effort to get into graduate and professional school.
• Hanover College Resources on Planning to go to Graduate School  Provides helpful information for applying to graduate school.
• The Ph.D. Octopus  An essay written by William James critiquing graduate school that is worth a read.
• Counseling Graduate Program UW-W Counseling Graduate Program webpage.
• Graduate School Preparation UW-W School of Graduate Study website.
• Psychology Graduate Guide An exhaustive list of available pre-professional options.

• APA American Psychological Association website provides a plethora of information for psychology students including APA style writing, career opportunities, a list of graduate programs in psychology, and current events in psychology.
• APS Association for Psychological Science website provides current psychological articles, publications, and news items.
• APSSC Association for Psychological Science membership information.
• Midwest Psychological Association Midwest Psychological Association website.
• National Association of School Psychologists National Association of School Psychologists for those interested in School Psychology.

• A List of Pages on Specialized Areas of Psychology Use these pages to find out more about particular areas of psychology.
• NASW National Association of Social Workers for those interested in the field of Social Work.
• Suggestions for Further Study A list of scholarly articles that discuss academics and careers for both undergraduate and graduate psychology students.
• What Can I Do with This Major? Information describing the various career and educational opportunities for psychology majors.

Students may gain valuable research experience through the department's research laboratories and research programs dedicated to conducting psychological research.  These labs and programs are typically led by individual faculty members who serve as the "principal investigator" on research studies that are conducted within the lab or program.  It's also typical for the research conducted in labs and programs to have a long-term and specific research focus, such as investigating the mechanisms of reward evaluation in the brain, or the relation between reading fluency and reading comprehension among school children. Involvement in a research lab can confer students with a strong background in a particular and focused field of research. 

Below are details about several labs/programs within the psychology department.  More detail can be obtained by contacting research faculty directly. 

Interested students are advised to have successfully completed both PSYCH 215 (Basic Statistical Methods) and PSYCH 216 (Research Methods), and have Junior standing before applying to join a lab or program. 

Behavioral Neuroscience Research Lab (Dr. Meg Waraczynski)

We study the neural mechanisms of reward evaluation in the mammalian brain.  Specifically, we study how neurochemical manipulations of cells in a structure called the extended amygdala affect rats' evaluation of the reward effect of stimulating the brain's medial forebrain bundle.  Ultimately, we seek to computationally model how cellular activity patterns in the extended amygdala represent the momentary value of a reward in the context of the animal's current internal and external environment.

The work of undergraduate assistants is critical to these goals.  Each semester students in both psychology and the biological sciences assist with animal testing, data analysis, and other related tasks.  Some students earn competitive undergraduate research grants, complete thesis projects, and present their work at professional conferences and in professional journals.  Students also get to know other motivated, curious, hard working students with a variety of interests and gain experience working as part of a team to achieve important goals.  If you would like more information about our lab contact Dr. Waraczynski (waraczym@uww.edu) or any students currently part of our research team. 

School-Based Reading Research (Dr. Christine Neddenriep)

Our research team is interested in looking at the relationship between reading fluency (reading with ease) and comprehension (reading for understanding) in elementary-school children. We are currently working with third-grade students at Washington Elementary School in Whitewater to improve their fluency and comprehension by using a strategy, Reread-Adapt and Answer-Comprehend (RAAC) which has been shown to increase students' speed and accuracy in reading as well as their understanding of fictional text. However, RAAC has not been applied to improving understanding of nonfiction text. Our research team has developed specific comprehension questions to assist students in understanding nonfiction text using the RAAC method. We use single-case, experimental designs (e.g., multiple baseline design across participants) to evaluate the effects of the intervention. We first evaluate the effects of fluency instruction alone on reading speed and accuracy as well as comprehension and then we add the comprehension instruction to determine the relative change in both fluency and comprehension with the addition of comprehension instruction. Our team currently includes one undergraduate student, Shawna Loniello, who is in the Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) and five graduate students in school psychology.

The Laboratory for Language and Emotion (Dr. David Havas)

The Laboratory for Language and Emotion uses the theory of embodied cognition to explore the relationship between language and emotion.  This lab is specifically interested in how language can evoke strong emotions in people, and also, how emotions impact language comprehension.  Recent research has shown that manipulations of participants' facial expressions of emotion change the speed with which they comprehend emotional sentences.  For example, pleasant sentences are read faster while smiling than while frowning, and vice versa for unpleasant sentences.  This finding helps support theories of embodied cognition, and shows that emotional states interact with sentence understanding.  Students who participate in this lab will be exposed to a variety of research methods, including the use of electrodes and eye tracking equipment.  Please visit the lab's website or contact Dr. Havas (havasd@uww.edu) for more information about this lab.

The Applied Health Psychology Lab (Dr. Sasha Karnes)

The Applied Health Psychology Lab is currently recruiting and enrolling adult patients from Aurora Health Care for a randomized controlled trial. The purpose of the research is to test the effectiveness of a web-based program that is based on motivational interviewing for increasing physical activity. Undergraduate researchers are involved with day-to-day study operations. Specific tasks include gathering and cataloging participant intake information, obtaining informed consent, collecting survey data, and sending intervention materials.

Dr. McCready's Research