Students Win OSU Research Week Awards

Friday, March 20, 2015

Several College of Education students were winners in the recent Oklahoma State University Research Week competition. 

In the oral presentation category graduate students Sonya Munsell of Tulsa and Deborah Crow of Oklahoma City placed first and second, respectively, and undergraduate Katherine Konstans of Dallas placed first in the education category.

Catherine Graves of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, and Colton Brown of Commerce, Ga. placed first and second, respectively, for their poster presentations in the education category.

Munsell and Douglas Knutson from Oklahoma City presented “LOL-ing in an online discussion: Humor as a social phenomenon that supports the meaning-making process.” The purpose of this study is to explore the use of humor within computer-mediated classroom discussions focused on learning; identify different ways humor arises in a meaning-making discussion; and to identify different functions of humor within learning-focused computer-mediated discussions. Munsell is a Ph.D. candidate in educational psychology and Knutson is a counseling psychology Ph.D. student.

Crow’s presentation titled, “’Two Strikes and You’re Out!’: Nursing Students’ Experiences of Failing and Repeating a Nursing Course” is an ongoing qualitative research project about the experience of nursing students who fail and repeat a nursing course and the implications for nursing faculty regarding what facilitates and hinders their success. Crow is an Education Psychology Ph.D. student.

Health education and promotion senior Katherine Konstans presented the findings of her study over the effects of squats on vertical jump height. It was found that there was no statistically significant evidence showing that squats decreased vertical jump height.Graves, a doctoral student in professional education studies – science education created a poster presentation depicting the study of the Pre-service Teacher Institute (PSTI), offered through NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project, that seeks to increase the number and diversity of individuals who complete pre-service teacher programs. The findings of this study suggest that pre-service teachers may benefit more in a face-to-face learning environment, especially in a science content area. 

First-year Ph.D. student Joe Currin titled his project “Multi-dimensional Assessment of Sexual Orientation and Childhood Gender Nonconformity.” The study looked at childhood gender nonconformity (CGN), or the presence of gender nonconforming behaviors in prepubescent children, as one of the only correlates of non-heterosexual adults that show significant results for men and women. Among the dimensions of sexual orientation assessed, attraction significantly predicted recalled CGN. The results highlight the importance of attractions and not relying solely on identified sexual orientation when assessing individuals.

Brown’s presentation used prior collected data and focused on same-sex attraction, desires and behaviors of self-identified heterosexuals. They found that individuals who identified as heterosexual who recalled childhood gender non-conformity and endorsed some same-sex attractions had different views of monogamy and casual sex than their heterosexual peers that did not recall or endorse. Brown is a doctoral student in counseling psychology.