From fall of 2022 to spring of 2023, I participated in Dr. Emily Stark’s psychology research team as a research assistant. Students could choose whether to receive credit for research through the course PSYC 496, which I chose to do. At the beginning of the first semester, Dr. Stark debriefed us on a continuing study , as well as a new study she wished to start. The continuing study aimed to assess the levels of students’ critical thinking skills when given scenarios to read. As research assistants, we set up time slots on SONA Systems in which students could sign up to be participants. When administering the study, the researchers met with the student participants in Dr. Stark’s lab room, where they were given a packet of various critical thinking scenarios to answer. Dr. Stark gave us guidance on how to answer any questions the participants had, how to score the results, and how to keep track of data while also maintaining confidentiality.

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In addition to the critical thinking study, Dr. Stark also had us do background research on the existing literature concerning people’s beliefs in pseudoscience. The other student researchers and I individually researched existing pseudoscience scales. Because there was a lack of these, as a team, we worked together to create a list of possible items to use for a scale. Dr. Stark then used our list to create an initial survey to gauge what types of pseudoscience people are familiar with. Overall, we found that people who had personally tried the pseudoscience practices were likely to believe that the practices were effective. We also found that GPA was not correlated with belief in pseudoscience, and that those who believed in pseudoscience topics were also likely to believe in paranormal topics. Developing a pseudoscience scale was both fascinating and challenging. Because there are so few existing scales, and ideas of what counts as pseudoscience varies across groups, we knew that our scale, with which we surveyed a limited sample, could not be generalized to the public. We eventually decided to look at pseudoscience practices in the context of the medical realm, as the level of effectiveness perceived from people can vary from context to context. For example, while there is support for meditation as beneficial for relaxation, there is not currently support for it as a medical treatment. Although this is how we contextualized pseudoscience as the researchers, we failed to formally define effectiveness when surveying participants, and it is something we will consider for future drafts of the scale.

 

This was my first time participating in more original research, and I look forward to seeing how the scale will be used to measure other variables in the future. In April of 2023, Caleb Chapman, a fellow research assistant, and I presented a poster of the pseudoscience study's main findings at the MNSU Undergraduate Research Symposium. This was an excellent opportunity to practice verbalizing my research work to others, especially students who do not have a background in psychology. Working with Dr. Stark was rewarding, as I find pseudoscience very interesting. Going forward, I would be interested in conducting more research having to do with related topics, including critical thinking.

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Below is the pseudoscience poster that was displayed at the URS.

 

 

 

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