Sabbatical A Leave Report for Spring 2014
Jeanne Edman
Submitted 10/17/2020
Abstract
I completed a sabbatical leave during the spring of 2014 which included a 9 week stay in Honolulu and have accomplished all of my major goals including: the development and implementation of psychological research studies, 2) the completion of two research manuscripts that address psychological distress among ethnically diverse college students which were submitted for publication, 3) the revitalization of my teaching through the development of research based materials to be incorporated into my Psychology courses, and 4) the increased collaboration between colleagues from universities in Hawaii. In addition the sabbatical leave also provided additional mentoring opportunities for a former CRC student and provided important information on trauma among CRC students that has been used to address issues related to student success among CRC students. This information has already been presented to the research office, CASSL, and faculty at the convocation breakout session on student success. I am scheduled to present sabbatical findings to counselors in November.
Overview
As described in the abstract, there were several major goals for my 2014, spring semester sabbatical leave and all were accomplished. The goals included:
1) The development and implementation of psychological research studies, 2) the completion of two research manuscripts that addressed psychological distress among ethnically diverse college students to be submitted for publication, 3) the revitalization of my teaching through the development of research based materials to be incorporated into my Psychology courses, 4) the increased collaboration between colleagues from universities in Hawaii and myself through the development and implementation of research projects with Dr. Susan Watson, Hawaii Pacific University (HPU), and Dr. Alayne Yates, Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii Medical School (UHM). In addition the sabbatical leave also provided additional mentoring opportunities for a former CRC student.
Results of the Project
Goals 1 and 2: Participate in Psychological Research and Develop research manuscript to be submitted to peer- reviewed journals
As proposed, I successfully completed research projects that addressed issues related to psychological distress among ethnically diverse students. Participation in this research has refreshed my research skills and increased my background knowledge on the topic of ethnicity and psychological distress through my involvement in two research projects. The first project, in collaboration with Dr. Susan Watson, Hawaii Pacific University (HPU), involved a continuation of our research on the impact of stress and trauma among ethnically diverse college students. This study included data collection at both CRC and Hawaii Pacific University campuses. The final CRC data were encoded into a SPSS data file in Feb. of 2014 and additional data was collected at HPU through March, 2014. Dr. Watson and I developed an SPSS data set that included over 1200 students from both campuses. Much of the HPU data were collected from campuses on military bases and we expect to complete an additional manuscript in the near future that will examine the impact of combat trauma on disordered eating and depression based on the data from CRC and HPU veterans. We plan to complete this research project during summer break of 2015. During my stay in Hawaii, I conducted an extensive search of the research literature on the topics of psychological trauma and ethnicity which was used to write the review of the literature and develop appropriate hypotheses for the research manuscript. I conducted numerous statistical analyses of the trauma data set to test the hypotheses and the results were described and discussed in the manuscript. Dr. Watson, Dr. Michael Erickson (HPU psychology department chair) and I also met frequently to discuss issues related to multivariate statistics including the possible use of logistic regression in a future study that will attempt to predict risk of obesity among ethnically diverse students. Dr. Erickson teaches the graduate levels courses in advanced statistics so is an expert on this topic. The final manuscript was completed in collaboration with Dr. Watson and former CRC student, David Patron, following the revised APA format of reporting research, and submitted to a peer reviewed journal for consideration for publication.
I also collaborated on a second research project with Dr. Alayne Yates, Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii Medical School. Dr. Yates and I have been working together for more than 15 years and have published several articles on the topic of culture and mental health. The sabbatical provided the time and opportunity to meet with Dr. Yates (and Dr. Lynch, Montana State University via email) which resulted in further refinement of the University of Hawaii dataset (data collected previously on several University of Hawaii campuses), completion of numerous statistical analyses, the development of two research manuscripts on the topics of depression, exercise, and body dissatisfaction among Native Hawaiians and Asian sub-groups, and the risk factors of obesity among college students in Hawaii. The development of the study included additional data collection, hypotheses development, locating and reviewing the research literature, refinement of the data, and data analyses including multivariate and univariatestatistical analyses. Also, an additional research study with former student, David Patron on the impact of helicopter parenting, was successfully presented at the Western Psychological Association meeting in Portland in April of 2014. Thus, a major outcome for the sabbatical leave was the participation in research and the development of the research manuscripts which provided me the opportunity to refresh my writing skills, increase my knowledge on the impact of trauma on psychological distress, and up-date my knowledge of the most recent changes in APA publication style.
As described above, I was the lead author on the three research manuscripts that were completed during the sabbatical leave and the summer of 2014 and are listed below. Two of the manuscripts have been submitted to peer reviewed journals (see attachments for articles). These articles were co-authored with researchers from University of Hawaii (Dr. Yates), Hawaii Pacific University (Dr. Watson), Montana State University (Dr. Lynch) and former CRC student, who recently received a BS in Psychology from UCD (David Patron). The titles of the manuscripts are as follows:
The Impact of Obesity and Gender on Disordered Eating Attitudes, Exercise, and Psychological Distress among College Students, co-authors Dr. W. Lynch, Montana State University, David Patron, UCD, former CRC student. Manuscript submitted to Translational Issues in Psychological Science, June, 2014.
Trauma and Psychological Distress among Ethnically Diverse Community College Students, co-authors, Dr. S.Watson and David Patron. Manuscript submitted to Journal of Mental Health Counseling, July, 2014.
Depressed Mood, Body Dissatisfaction, and Exercise among Native Hawaiian, Japanese and Filipino American college students, co-authors, Dr. W. Lynch, Dr. A. Yates, Dr. M. Aruguete, & David Patron. Manuscript will be submitted in Fall 2014.
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Goal 3: Development of research based modules which would be incorporated into my Psychology curriculum,
Participation in these research projects has also been of benefit to CRC students since they provided me with the opportunity to revitalize my teaching. The findings of these studies have been incorporated into my Cross-Cultural Psychology (PSYC 368) and Introductory Psychology (PSYC 300) courses through the development of research based modules. The modules that have been developed for Cross Cultural Psychology (PSYC 368) include: 1) The impact of ethnicity and traumatic experiences on psychological distress and 2). Asian and Pacific Island subgroups differences in risk of depression. The modules developed for Introduction to Psychology (PSYC 300) include: 1) The impact of trauma on the health and mental of CRC students and 2) Factors that predict risk of obesity among college students in Hawaii. If one or more of the manuscripts are accepted for publication in a peer reviewed journal, the actual journal article(s) will be used in my cross cultural psychology course in our unit on how psychologists conduct and report research in APA format. Lastly, the findings from the trauma research project have enhanced my knowledge on the topics of culture, trauma and mental health and provided me with a better understanding of the traumatic events experienced by CRC college students. Thus, I believe I am now a more effective teacher with more information concerning the experiences of CRC students outside of our campus and how these experiences may impact psychological distress and student academic success.
The findings from the trauma study have already been used to inform our CRC community about the levels of traumatic experienced among our students and the impact of trauma on mental health, with a presentation to the faculty during convocations breakout session in August and a presentations to CASSL and the research staff in October on the topic of traumatic experiences among CRC students and how trauma may impact student success. A future presentation of the sabbatical study will be presented to the counseling faculty in November.
Additional and Future Sabbatical related activities:
In early 2014, I was appointed to the RECAB Board which is affiliated with UC Davis Medical School and during my leave attended 2 board meetings at UCD Medical School. The mission of this organization is to ensure that UC Davis research is relevant to this area’s diverse communities. The primary aim is to “improve the knowledge, skills and attitudes of both researchers and communities around pressing public health problems”. I was invited to serve on this board in large part due to my research accomplishments in the area of cross-cultural psychology, health and mental health. Thus, participation in activities conducted during my sabbatical leave have also contributed to my collaboration with UCD medical school researchers and health leaders from the larger Sacramento region.
As described above, the trauma project with Dr. Watson will continue and the 2014 sabbatical leave has provided me the opportunity to begin other research projects which we plan to complete during the summers of 2015- 2018. These activities include:
1)Dr. Watson (HPU) is taking the lead on an additional study which combines the CRC and HPU data and we will examine the psychological distress among students who have experienced combat or war trauma.
2)Dr. Watson will also take the lead on another study that is based on online data collection from veterans who are not students and plan to examine risk of depression and eating disorder among this sample.
3)Finally, we (Dr. Watson, Dr. Michael Erickson, HPU Psychology chair) are the process of completing another study, Psycho-social Predictors of Obesity, using our CRC/HPU combined dataset. This will include the implantation of multivariate analyses to examine risks for obesity data among our 1200 student sample.
4)I will take the lead on another study that examines risk of disordered among ethnically diverse women.
Summary of the sabbatical leave results in the context of CRC’s sabbatical guidelines:
This sabbatical leave has been of benefit to me since it provided an opportunity to spend a semester participating in two research projects in Hawaii and development of 3 APA formatted manuscripts. It also revitalized my teaching through the incorporation of my sabbatical research findings into my courses. It has been of benefit to my students since CRC’s new Psychology AA-T degree places an emphasis on psychology as a science and focuses on research methodology. The scientifically based modules have been incorporated into to my courses and demonstrate how scientists conduct research studies to address relevant topics of human behavior. In addition some of the modules are based on CRC student data, so students will have an opportunity to learn more about the psychological issues experienced among their peers. This is important because very little research has been conducted on the psychological distress among community college students. The leave provided an opportunity for a former CRC student to participate in the research process resulting in being a co-author of three scientific manuscripts. Lastly, the sabbatical leave supported one of CRC’s overriding goal of the development of cultural competence and diversity, which I believe was supported by the psychological research projects that examined psychological issues of college students from Hawaii and California, including Asian, Native Hawaiian, Latino, African American and Caucasian ethnicities.