The Psychology department has established a state-of-the-art research lab designed to encourage a undergraduate and graduate research agenda within the College of Juvenile Justice and Psychology. The research lab allows students to develop their skills in conducting research, data collection and analysis processes. The aim is to offer students a rewarding experience while learning about and implementing different stages of research. As with any organization there are some basic rules and guidelines to follow to ensure that we produce high quality work. Therefore, a current high-tech research management system has been implemented.
The Psychology Subject Pool is a system that provides undergraduate students enrolled in psychology courses participation experience with a broad range of psychological research. The Psychology Subject Pool also provides faculty and graduate students in the Psychology department with a source of participants for their research projects. The purpose is to ensure that consistent and proper procedures are followed by all researchers for the protection of participants and to make student participation as easily accessible as possible.
Every research study in Psychology Subject Pool must be individually approved or receive an exempt status from the Prairie View A&M University Institution Review Board (IRB). Each study must have a consent form or an information statement. The subject pool is managed by the Psychology Subject Pool Coordinator.
Undergraduate students may pay participate in the subject pool voluntarily or as part a class requirement. Students may enroll in the web-based registry system at http://pvamu.sona-systems.com/. After enrolling, students will be able to sign up for any of the various research projects listed in the registry. Study information including the study name, description, credit amount, and investigator are provided. The online system is available 24-hours a day and offers online cancellation and up-to-date viewing of credits earned throughout the semester. The online subject pool also gives participants contact information of researchers conducting particular studies and sends reminder emails for scheduled research sessions.
Department of Psychology faculty members are actively engaged in several research endeavors aimed to advance knowledge and inform intervention programs related to at-risk youth in our communities. Specifically, many of these projects are associated with indentifying psycho-social risk and protective factors related to juvenile delinquency. Faculty is also involved in conducting research that pertains to student retention within the College of Juvenile Justice and Psychology.
Student involvement in faculty research is strongly encouraged at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Psychology Faculty Research Interests
Dr. Louis Anderson, Associate Professor:
Stress and coping; trauma; student learning outcomes
Dr. Aisha Asby, Assistant Professor:
Family functioning; socio-emotional functioning and coping; spirituality; HIV/AIDS
Dr. Joe Dickson, Assistant Professor:
Subjective-understanding; attachment; psychological disorders
Dr. Angela Heads, Assistant Professor:
Racial identity; perfectionism; coping; life-satisfaction; intra-group marginalization
Dr. Sharon Morgan, Associate Professor:
Community based school intervention and outcome evaluation; health psychology (i.e., relationships among variables such as later serious health/medical problem outcomes, self-efficacy, academic and social adjustment and eating habits, geographic/characteristics of living space and obesity/overweightness in the college student population)
Dr. Peter Metofe, Assistant Professor:
The application of statistical and psychometric methods to practical problems in organizational and educational settings, which includes development and validation of scales used in various settings, prediction of job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and employee turnovers), academic and job performance. Critical analysis of social psychological constructs with implications in clinical and organizational settings.
Dr. B. Drake Williams, Visiting Assistant Professor:
Male coping; crisis management; sex trafficking
Dr. Derek Wilson, Associate Professor:
The establishment of positive mental health model for African Americans including: connectedness; consciousness and competency; positive psychological functioning; culturally consistent assessment and intervention programs; and culturally related biological connection to behavior.
