Blog Roots III

Periodically, I like to return to my blog roots and give a general update, so here goes: (Previous Blog Roots I, II)

T$ Update:

School and research are proceeding quite nicely. The first semesters of my time in Kansas were mostly slow, my research and other involvement did not keep me extremely busy. But then data collection for my thesis, supervising the rat lab, coordinating a student’s convention and other things kept me very busy. The same pattern is beginning to emerge here in Texas.

I’m working on several projects in the Aging and Cognition Lab related to metacognition, social aspects of age differences in memory, and student’s use of study strategies. I’m also very excited about a new project in the Environmental Psychophysiology Laboratory. I’ve written about the ERN here before; the new study is also related to the ERN. The study has the potential to make real progress disentangling several issues that have plagued interpretation of the waveform. The principle investigator (PI) has high hopes for its publication in a high-impact journal.

As is necessary to receive my stipend, I also teach a lab section of PSYC203: Statistics for Psychology, today we talked about independent samples t-tests. So far, it has been a fine experience, but mostly a back-burner activity, if I were the teacher of record I would feel more responsibility for the course.

Other News:

Was in Houston and Rice University over the weekend for the ARMADILLO cognition conference. Friday and Saturday there were talks all day and a poster session Friday afternoon (I presented some of my work on stereotypes and aging). Unlike other conferences I’ve been to, there was only one event at a time, whether it was a talk or a poster session. Meagan and I also enjoyed the Rice Village district, we had tapas Friday evening and visited the Chocolate Bar Saturday afternoon.

One interesting thing about Rice University, a private university with what must be an enormous endowment, is that its often referred to as the Harvard of the south. To students and faculty at Rice though, Harvard is the Rice of the north. UPDATE: I checked, Rice’s endowment is 4.7 billion dollars as of 2007. (wiki)

Meagan and I are hosting a Halloween party this Saturday. We’re hoping we can have as good a party as we did our last year in Kansas, which will not be an easy task. I think our costumes are a secret but I’ll definitely post pictures after the party.

TX Update:

Who knew it would rain so damn much in Texas. In September we had 7.4 inches of rain, over three inches above average, and this month we’re already at 8 inches, 4 inches above average!

Picture Me Crying – My Manuscript was Rejected

I’m trying not to be too dramatic about my rejection notice, but I did feel quite deflated when I found out my manuscript was rejected. It’s been nearly a week since I heard, now I’m mostly optimistic about the future of the paper.

The paper was reviewed by two experts, I was dissapointed it wasn’t three. Of course, the editor also reviewed my paper, but probably cursorily. Reviewer 2 encouraged a revision and resubmission and Reviewer 1 didn’t make a final judgment, but from a reading of the comments it was probably a reject.

To give you some background about the study, we asked students to predict their exam scores and gave them extra credit for being correct, we were measuring their metacognitive abilities. We hoped that with time and practice making predictions, their metacognition would improve. Good metacognitive abilities are associated with improved grades. In short, we were trying to help students know themselves.

We submitted the paper to Applied Cognitive Psychology because it was applied. We collected data from students in a traditional classroom — we thought this was a real strength of the paper. Reviewer 2 commented that we need to address this quasi-experimental aspect, and provide a justification.

A major comment from both Reviewer 1 and the Editor was our lack of a control group, or a group that made predictions about their exam scores and DID NOT receive extra credit for accuracy. This is a valid criticism and one that we are addressing this semester by collecting another semester’s worth of data, no small endeavor.

So, the paper was rejected, but I’m not sweating it. When it’s all said and done the paper will be even better and we’ll resubmit, probably to the same journal.

New Manuscript Status

I’ve written previously about the manuscript I submitted for publication (link). The title of the paper is Training Metacognition in the Classroom: How Incentives and Feedback Influence Exam Predictions. According to the publisher’s (Wiley) online author center, there is a new status for my submission.

I submitted the paper July 17, 2009, as of today the status is “evaluating recommendation.” This means the manuscript has been reviewed by at least 3 of my “peers” and they have made recommendations to the editor.

The best case scenario would be an accept notice, which means the paper would appear in the Applied Cognitive Psychology sometime soon. An equally good scenario would be to hear back that the paper is accepted contingent on minor revisions. In this case we would make changes to the paper and send it back.

I could also get a revise and resubmit notice, a good outcome and one that is infinitely more likely than either outright acceptance or acceptance with revisions.

Worst-case scenario is an outright rejection notice. Researchers get rejection notices for a variety of reasons. One could be the the paper is poor quality. Another could be the journal is not the right venue for the paper.  If I get a rejection notice for the former reason I will cry first, then revise and resubmit the paper elsewhere. If I’m rejected for the latter reason, I’ll just resubmit elsewhere.

Training Metacognition

I submitted my first manuscript today to Applied Cognitive Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal. The title of the submission is Training Metacognition: How Incentives and Feedback Influence Exam Predictions

There is certainly no guarantee it will be accepted but I have a good feeling about it. After a dozen iterations it is pretty well polished and I think our conclusions are sound. I’ll update with news as I get it.

So far the status online is “under review” with Dr. Robert Belli at University of Nebraska – Lincoln.