Published on November 9, 2015 by Sean Flynt  

Samford psychology majors presented five of the 27 research papers at the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Annual Conference on Teaching (ACT) in Atlanta, Georgia, in October.

 “These were professional papers selected through blind review,” said Psychology Department chair Steven Chew. Students in his 306 Research Methods course in spring 2015 completed the projects under his supervision in four groups. He was so impressed with the quality of the work that he submitted the projects for ACT consideration. “A month or so later I got the message that all five had been accepted,” Chew said.

The Samford ACT presentations included:

The Influence of Conformity, Social Loafing, and Grading Method on Commitment to Group Work. Joshua Aarons, Kevin Figlewicz, Keke Fletcher, Sarah Pryor, Stephen L. Chew.

The Effect of Cognitive Disfluency on Depth of Processing and Student Learning. Will Brennan, Ashley Ferguson, Parisa Poorak, Sarah Tarnakow, Stephen L. Chew.

Overlearning and the Ability to Withstand Forgetting Due to Interference. Jeremy Dale, Ashlyn Ward, Rebecca Womack, and Stephen L. Chew.

The Interaction of Desirable Difficulty and Testing Effects on Test Scores in College Students. Sara Nolin, Mikala Pickens, and Katharine M. Wood, Stephen L. Chew.

Free Writing, Values Affirmation, and Humor as a Means of Decreasing Mathematics Anxiety. Ellen Pacsi ’15 and Stephen L. Chew.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.