Research Experience in Abnormal Psychology: Resilience

In this course you will learn how to design an original research study in clinical psychology that is scientifically rigorous and personally compelling. Although the course will contain all of the traditional components of a research experience course -- planning and conducting a study, then analyzing the data and writing up the results -- it is also a pilot project, being done in collaboration with the Center for Community Partnerships, which will allow students to learn while simultaneously providing a service to the community. The primary goal of the course is to evaluate the efficacy of a resilience-building intervention, which we will implement in a local West Philadelphia elementary school. Early in the semester, students will be trained to deliver a new version of the Penn Resilience Program, a kids' resilience curriculum developed at Penn, designed specifically to be administered by college students with limited training. The class will then make weekly trips to the school to deliver the intervention. We will collect data in order to assess the efficacy of this new program, as compared to kids who do other after-school activities, with the ultimate goal of creating a sustainable resilience-building program that can be maintained in the community.