Presenting My Poster at the COEHP Honors Research Symposium
Author: Emerson Talbot | Major: Childhood Education | Semester: Spring 2023
Over the course of the 2023 Spring grant term, I worked with my honors mentor, Dr. Kaitlin Gallagher, an associate professor in the Education department as well as the Health, Human Performance, and Recreation department, to complete my University of Arkansas Student-Teacher and Observation Students’ Perceptions of Burnout study. This semester, we focused on interviewing university students about their perceptions of burnout and analyzing the data we collected. My goal for the completion of my study was to find how current education students in their “student-teacher” or “observation” year in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas perceived teacher burnout.
After our initial survey, Dr. Gallagher and I decided to conduct an interview with a small group of students who completed the survey. I ended up interviewing three “observation students” and one “student-teacher” about their experiences of burnout symptoms in their observation or intern placement. Getting to conduct interviews was a new experience for me. Through this process, I learned a lot about the IRB informed consent procedure. The responses from these interviews provided me with a deeper insight into these specific student’s experiences as well as with direct quotations about their experiences that I was able to use when writing my Honors Thesis. Interviewing after the initial survey was something that I was unsure about doing at first, but I am so glad that I took the extra time to conduct these interviews because they offered me with knowledge about student experiences with burnout that I would not have gotten otherwise.
Once Dr. Gallagher and I had all of our data collected from the survey and interviews, it was time to analyze it. In short, we ran between-group t-tests on the survey data to determine whether responses were different between student teachers and observation students. We also performed a deductive content analysis of the open-ended and interview responses and grouped the stressors related to those comments. Before completing this study, I would have had no idea what any of that meant. But with the help of my honors mentor, I was able to find common themes pertaining to burnout that the students I surveyed and interviewed felt. I was also able to find differences between the “student-teachers” and “observation students” perceptions of burnout which was something that I was not initially looking for in my study.
I also got the opportunity to present my research at the COEHP Honors Annual Research Symposium in the form of a poster. This was a whole new experience for me as I had never made a poster like this before and I had never really talked about my research before. With the help of my faculty mentor, I went through the process of creating my poster for the symposium. It was challenging to pick out the select information that I wanted to represent on my poster as well as organize it in a way that was easy for the viewer to follow. After a few poster drafts and meetings about how to create my research “elevator pitch,” I was able to share my research with students and professors in my college at the Research Symposium!
This next year, I will be pursuing my Master of Arts in Teaching with a Concentration in Reading with Dyslexia at the University of Arkansas. This graduate program includes a yearlong internship in a local elementary school as well as completion of action research related to childhood education. Because of the experiences the Honors Program has provided me through the completion of my Honors Thesis, I am more confident in my ability to complete research in my graduate program, and I am looking forward to choosing a new topic to explore.