Hoverstad ’16 and Sauliner at the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota
Last spring, I applied for the Braatz summer research opportunity, and was so fortunate to have received it. This past summer has been an amazing one for learning more about research in psychology, realizing my personal interests in research, and having fun while doing it! What I did this summer is working alongside Professor Patricia Reeder and Research Assistant Kevin Saulnier where I have been conducting research both at the Center for Developmental Science here at Gustavus, and the Living Lab in the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota in Mankato.
Hoverstad ’16 and Saulnier with research study.
More specifically, we have been working mainly on two studies this summer; ProbBox Kids and Magna-Tiles. In the ProbBox study, we were looking at pattern learning in children ages 4-10 where they would play a “guessing game” on a touchscreen computer and we would look at how often they would choose the majority box (one of the boxes clearly had the majority of the toys in it). In the Magna-Tiles study, we were looking at play behaviors of children ages 4-10 and how instruction would affect their play. Both of these studies were run both in the CDS lab and the CMSM.
I will be presenting a poster on this research this spring and fall and also continuing this research over the course of the year along with the other student researchers who work in the Center for Developmental Science.
Submitted by Tara Hoverstad ’16