An Undergraduate Research Assistant

I am going to be an undergraduate research assistant, but I don’t really know what that means. This is what I told my friends and family this summer when they asked me what I was most excited about for my senior year of college. But oh, have I learned quickly.

In the spring, I had been asked by a professor if I would be interested to work on a research study. I had no idea what it entailed, but I thought it sounded like an amazing opportunity and said yes!

After months of silence, I had figured it had been canceled. Little did I know there were countless hours of meetings and planning going on behind the scenes just to make it a possibility. Sure enough, by August the whole thing had come together, and we had our first introduction to the group and the project. At this point I knew we were researching social media and well-being, and that we were to be split into smaller groups of undergraduate students run by a graduate student.

Over the next few weeks, we used the words “social media”, “well-being”, “coherence” and all of their synonyms to find relevant research articles to gain knowledge and formulate our own study. Ideas turned into plans, that ultimately lead to our group's research topic. Our three areas of research will be: a user’s coherence of their self-presentation across social media platforms, where that user falls within the big 5 personalities, and their wellbeing.

Currently, we meet once a week to catch-up, report our findings, and talk through ideas of how to make the most of this opportunity. During a typical meeting, these are a few of the things that go through my head:

· Am I already supposed to know this?

· Wait go back, but slower this time…

· An IRB? What’s that?

· You can use other people’s surveys to continue their work? I had no idea!

Basically, I ask a lot of questions. It can feel overwhelming at times to be in a new, very advanced, academic situation. Taking the time to put effort into your own research and asking questions along the way makes it a lot more manageable.

The bulk of our work, and the biggest learning curve for me, has been the research. I have researched journal articles many times for class. This has always consisted of finding a title that matches my topic and finding one or two key quotes that prove my point. I had never read an article all the way through.

Here is the process I went through:

1. Read the title and the abstract. Does it match what you are studying? If yes, continue

2. Read the intro and conclusion/discussion. This gives background information and the overall results of the study

3. Dive into the methods, there will be a lot here you might not understand, but that’s ok. Get a general idea if they used a survey or interview or something else.

4. This leads into the results, though these are also technical and are better explained in the conclusion and discussion

5. Now read the whole thing again from top to bottom. See if there are things you missed or that make more sense now. I recommend finding “gem quotes” that will help with your understanding, along with taking notes throughout your reading.

These were tips from both my teams and that I found myself over time. Now, if someone were to ask me what it meant to play a key role in creating and conducting a research study, I’d have a much better response.