Double Digit Week! (10)

Greetings!

This week is the last full week of my internship. Hooray! But that doesn't mean I still don't a few more weeks to inform you guys about my continual progress on achievement motivation and my senior project.

To my surprise, the ASU Language and Literature department was so grateful for my contribution that they threw me a mini-donut party as a going-away celebration! Alright!!!

They even made me a little plaque (on the right of the donuts) as a token of appreciation for all my efforts.

And here is one with me, my on-site advisor, Julie Pauelsc (right of me in photo), and very friendly ASU office staff.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at the Senior Project work!

This week, I conducted further analysis on my data. I used the final results of the item analyses, which I told you about last week, to create a final conformity scale of four items with two factors. Then, I tested each factor against my other variable composite means.

Shall I give you a hint of what I found? *whispers* Don't tell anyone.

Kids at BASIS don't conform as much as college kids. Yep. You read that right. We here at BASIS are non-conformers! Yeah! And I can prove it.



Taking a look at the tables above, I created variable '1' to represent high schoolers at BASIS and variable '2' to represent college kids at ASU. I bolded the mean rank values in Table 1. to indicate that, on average, college kids are shown to conform more in academic contexts than BASIS students. This is because the values of  '2' were fairly higher than that of '1'. Meanwhile, Table 2. indicated that this correlation was statistically significant (not caused by chance) because the p-value was very low (bolded).

Concurrently, I have officially completed all my results and statistical tests. However, I still need to interpret all the data in a meaningful way and then create my methodology section of my final project. This includes creating appropriate data tables and descriptives alongside the quantitative data.

Overall, I am continuing on strong through my senior project and am eager to discover the latest hidden secrets of motivation and conformity! Until next time!

End of the Second Fortnight!

Progressing on forward, I heightened my weekly awareness of incorporating my topics into my current internship. For example, through my observations of others, I have become keenly aware of conformity and motivation.

In analyzing student behaviors, some students came to me for help only when first redirected by their teacher. To them, I served as a potential source of guidance, but others immediately scheduled me for assistance in their course work. This type of seizing opportunities for academic enhancement is exactly the kind of indication that highly goal-orientated individuals actively display. Typically, a reflection of a student high in internal motivation or desiring of high academic achievement.  

Additionally, I dedicated extra measures of my time in assisting for ASU's Night of the Open Door, but I will save that for a later post. However, I will say that it was an exciting way to communicate with and converse with hordes of individuals interested in everything the campus had to present and offer.        

Third Week of Voluntary Educational Servitude

 
   Hello once again! This week I had the opportunity to assist in ASU's Language and Literature fair which meant I could represent my national heritage. The event consisted of countless individuals arriving to visit the facility, primarily high school students touring the ASU campus. Interestingly, the students each had their own faux passport as part of a personal assignment that they had to complete for their field trip. I had tons of people asking me questions, eager faces, and restless ones trying to complete their scavenger hunt.  The ones trying to complete the scavenger hunt were most interesting because they were obviously motivated by external rewards - they just wanted the stamp in their passport. Though there was certainly a higher level of effort, it was more fun than being an office caddie - and I was able to get my name written in four different languages by people in the other language departments (namely Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic).

But don't be forlorn about my progress on the psychological study for my senior project, it will be soon underway!



    

Week Two of the Internship!

   My internship continued this week with the same adrenaline-filled zeal for getting to work on time. Luckily, I got a transportation upgrade to the intercampus shuttle since ASU West campus is nearby, which means more time to sleep in the morning. Additionally, I have extended my services by beginning to tutor students in Romanian, finding that they needed the greatest amount of support in pronunciation.

In other news, I discovered that my tentative survey would not need to be under stringent supervision by an ethics board unless I intend to publish my findings in a journal. However, I may undertake the authorization process anyway, simply to learn what the ethics approval procedure entails.

All in all, I have found that there is a positive correlation between time spent on shuttles and the amount of remaining gas in my car, which makes me content.            

First Week of My Internship. Fortis Ad Finem!

My internship for my senior project is at Arizona State University's Romanian cultural department, in the School of International Letters and Cultures. Being that my predominant motive for conducting this internship is to facilitate a psychological study, I am taking advantage of the ample opportunities for me to observe others.      

Besides withstanding rush hour traffic with the utmost discernment of people's intentions, there has also been time for more incisive analysis of the past week. I attended several of my on-site mentor's lectures and got a feel for my subjects. Concurrent to attending classes, I was introduced to a multitude of advisers in the Language and Literature building. From there, I obtained the honor of fulfilling many trivial but necessary administrative tasks for the department (notably scanning Arab manuscripts for hours on end). 

After an hour and fifteen minutes driving there, only to arrive with eight minutes left to park my car and run upstairs to the class; and forty-five minutes coming back each night, I realized that my university experience is probably going to be one that centers around time. I also realized that an on-campus housing situation is highly preferable.

Well Begun Is Half Done ~ Greek Proverb

Introduction

Greetings from Beyond the System!

Have you ever wondered why there seem to be two types of successful people? There is the first type, ones with hidden connections, and the second, mavericks with ingenious creative minds.

Do you see the difference between these two paths for success, and how they fit into our social system? If you don't my hope is that you will as you delve deeper into this blog.

 This blog site will capture, with the most unfolding exhilaration that a psychological study could ever contain, my thoughts, experiences, and analyses. My intentions for this expedition going forward is to detail my progress in my Senior Project, on Achievement Motivation and Conformity and my delightful internship, all while amusing and illuminating the minds of those who read this blog.

Through this paradigm-defying journey, we will bring the notion of the system and its truths to light. Here you will find a compelling compilation of convincing facts, deeply illuminated with critical analysis, which will challenge you to rethink how you view the system.

~May you realize the limits so that you may transcend them! 

I.D.T.