Our lab is proud to host numerous Honours students each year. This year our Honours students are: Nadine Hutchison, Michelle Johns and Lucy Matson.
All Bachelor of Psychology Honours students at Flinders University undertake a psychology honours thesis, core topics in contemporary issues and applications of psychology, and have seminars in research and practice in psychology.
However, honours students in our lab have the added benefit of working with a team of researchers for their Honours year. These researchers include our Lab Director Melanie Takarangi, PhD graduates, PhD students, and Masters students. Our Honours students attend weekly lab meetings. Here they can talk through research issues, brainstorm ideas, and hear about other research being conducted in the lab. This year, each of our Honours students had their very own PhD mentor who has guided them through the research process, and helped with the logistics of data collection.
Our lab also has a strong focus on collaborative writing. Last week our Honours students attended a writing workshop put together by one of our own PhD students, Deanne Green. The workshop was designed to brainstorm specific writing issues the students were having, and to talk about ideas to overcome them. Much of the content was borrowed with thanks to Dr Maria Gardiner from Thinkwell who recently gave a workshop for PhD students at Flinders University.
Ideas included:
- How to get past your writer’s block
- How to plan your writing
- How to write more and more and more
- How to structure your writing
The workshop included a “no excuses” writing session, where everyone present wrote for 15 minutes non-stop.
All of the students found this workshop helpful, and felt that it improved their motivation to write, as well as to work through some of the issues that were holding them back. All of our Honours students will be giving talks about their research this year, and writing a thesis, so watch this space for these up-and-coming researchers.