Curious about what the fourth year Psychology Independent Study students have been researching?  Come meet the talented students behind the projects and participate in discussions about their research findings. 

Feel free to drop in at any time during the event and stay for as long as you like. To assist with event planning, we kindly request interested attendees to register in advance.

Featured Research Projects
 

Ashley Gillespie (Supervisor Dr. Anomi Bearden)
Evaluating the Impacts of HeartMath Heart Lock-In Practice on Heart Rate Variability and Well-Being in Adolescent Hockey Players

Adolescent athletes face intense performance pressure during a critical stage of development, yet their mental and emotional well-being is often overlooked in sport. This highlights a critical and growing need for effective tools that support athletes’ emotional and physiological resilience, stress management, and overall well-being. This research addresses that need by testing a simple, five-minute daily HeartMath Heart Lock-In practice over a four-week period.

This work is important because it offers a practical and cost-effective way to help athletes build emotional regulation and resilience, which supports long-term well-being and greater longevity in competitive sport. The project is unique due to it’s focus on adolescent hockey players, a demographic that has limited research attention. While most research uses time-intensive interventions, the study tests a brief, more feasible approach designed to fit within a competitive season. Additionally, the study examines psychological factors such as self-oriented perfectionism and self-compassion, which are understudied in current literature. By exploring a brief daily practice, the research aims to better align psychological skills training with a busy athletic lifestyle.
 

Laura Arnusch (Supervisor Dr. Stephen Brown)
Addressing Low Perceived Competence and Utility Value to Reduce Statistics Anxiety and Improve Learning Achievement

Statistical knowledge has become an integral component of higher education; however, students regularly display statistics anxiety, which hinders academic performance. Moreover, statistics anxiety decreases confidence in core research skills, makes students embarrassed to ask for help, and reduces engagement and persistence. Foremost, it directly interferes with learning due to shifting focus to worry. This study assesses whether an intervention addressing low utility value of statistics and low perceived competence will improve students’ attitudes toward statistics, reduce anxiety, and improve achievement. It is hypothesized that students in the intervention condition will show improved attitudes and anxiety and will achieve higher midterm grades compared to students in the active control and control groups. This strategy fills a gap in the existing literature as it addresses both low utility value and low perceived competence, whereas most research addresses one or the other. Moreover, very few interventions have been conducted in Canadian institutions, and even fewer have been embedded within mandatory course material. This research has strong practical and theoretical implications. From an instructional standpoint, this intervention is simple, low-cost, and can be embedded within regular course delivery. If effective, it provides a model that instructors can implement every semester without increasing workload.

Jalynn Chilibeck (Supervisor Dr. Greg Wells)
Impact on Older Adults of the Holistic Wellness Program “Move Your Mood”

The purpose of this research project is to evaluate the new program, Move Your Mood for Older Adults. Previous studies have looked at the impacts of the other Move Your Mood programs, this will help fill in the research and literature surrounding Move Your mood. In the first phase, we will be looking at participant perceptions of the impacts of the program through qualitative data collection. In the second phase, we will use quantitative measures to look at the impacts of the program in regards to participant loneliness, social connectedness, thriving, and self-efficacy.

This research will provide both qualitative and quantitative data to support the function and growth of the Move Your Mood program in the future, giving insights to the tangible benefits as well as the perceived benefits for participants. This study hopes to provide information that supports the continuation of this program as a method of promoting and supporting holistic well-being in older adults in our community and throughout Central Alberta.
 

Brooke Schwartz (Supervisor Dr. Greg Wells)
Empowering Wellness in Long-Term Care through Creative Design

The Covid-19 pandemic made apparent systemic challenges within Canada’s long-term care system. With an aging population and dramatic increases in demand for long-term care straining the system, Assistive Technology (AT) is viewed as a vital potential means for enhancing care, reducing workplace stress, and improving organizational efficiency. For such benefits to be realized, however, it is essential that technological innovations are designed and implemented in accordance with needs, perspectives and insights of those impacted. Through enhancing understanding of the co-design process as a multi-stakeholder undertaking this project will provide information and direction that should increase the likelihood that the potential benefits of assistive technology in this environment will be realized. A key outcome of this research is to further the development of this form of AT, using input from those most impacted by its development. Further this study will:

•  Explore the perspectives of varied stakeholder groups on the potential and challenges of AT in long-term-care
• Explore the early stage (proof-of-concept) co-design process with respect to the development of this technology based on input from key stakeholders and end users
• Further the iterative process that is co-design, allowing progress toward the development and implementation of a field-ready prototype of this AT

Karson Ince (Supervisor Dr. Elena Antoniadis)
Exploring physiological factors influencing cognitive control on an attentional task

This study seeks to examine the relationship between pulse rate variability (PRV; the natural variations in time between heartbeats) and cognitive functioning during an attentional task. Interest in enhancing PRV has grown in the health and wellness world, and it is valuable to better understand how PRV reacts to changes in cognitive functioning, especially at a post-secondary institution. Researchers study PRV to understand attention, task engagement, and patterns of physiological responding; however, PRV measures are typically recorded before the implementation of a cognitive task. This study measures participants’ PRV during the attentional task, in hopes of informing how optimal physiological arousal occurs during cognitive tasks. A unique aspect of this project is its potential to bring real-world applications to the public, as PRV sensors, like the one used for this study, are currently installed in wearable technology, like smartwatches. This project has the potential to provide the public with methods to benefit their psychological and physiological well-being, as this technology and its research findings increasingly become more accessible.