Teaching Research Methods with an Anti-Hunger Project
/ERIC E. JONES (GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY)
Please note: Instructors are welcome to use or adapt these teaching ideas for their own classes, provided the use is noncommercial and appropriate credit is given.
Objectives
To help students: (1) understand good research design (e.g., random assignment); (2) learn about a psychological principle or phenomenon (e.g., anchoring) in depth; (3) actively participate in the research process, such as how to read and locate relevant primary research, how to analyze and interpret data, and how to write a scientific manuscript; (4) learn about an important social issue, such as childhood hunger, and a local organization working to address it; and (5) discover how psychology and research methods can be used to improve society
Abstract
In this project, students approach people using one of three messages with a request to volunteer, and they collect data on the number of people who comply with the request. After analyzing these data, students determine which message produced the most volunteerism. Students also gain hands-on experience learning about the elements of good research design and writing a research paper. Over a four-year period, students studied the effectiveness of several psychological principles to fuel volunteering, leading to over 13,000 decorated meal bags for a local anti-hunger organization.
Description
Anyone who teaches Research Methods or Statistics knows that many students take these courses because they're required for their college major or minor, not because of intrinsic interest. This project originated out of a love for community and a desire to foster student interest and engagement in courses related to research methodology. Through feedback I collected on my research methods course, students expressed a strong desire to complete a project for a nonprofit organization, which led me to develop a project for Kids' Food Basket—a local nonprofit group that fights childhood hunger by providing daily "sack suppers" to schoolkids. Kids' Food Basket serves children who already get free or reduced-priced lunches at school, and without sack suppers, might go to bed on an empty stomach. The organization currently serves over 8,800 schoolchildren each weekday in West Michigan, and it expects to eventually serve 15,000 children per day.
Kids' Food Basket delivers the food in brown paper bags that, when possible, are decorated by volunteers with colorful illustrations and positive messages. Why are the decorated bags important? Here is a favorite story from Kids' Food Basket:
A teacher was doing a home visit where a child received sack suppers regularly. As the child showed her around, he proudly pointed out decorated brown paper bags on the walls of a bedroom he shared with siblings. When the teacher asked why he had saved them, he answered, "Because they are mine." The little boy had saved dozens of decorated paper bags because they were among the only belongings that he could truly call his own.
As one of my students noted, Kids' Food Basket is "providing caring and comfort to the children who would have otherwise been looked over."
The above story inspired this action teaching project. Would hearing the story lead someone to decorate more bags compared to a neutral request? Could psychological principles be used to increase the number of bags decorated? This appeared to be an ideal action teaching project because it could be used to teach about experimental design and statistical analyses while contributing to the welfare of others in the form of decorated meal bags for disadvantaged children. Furthermore, students could learn about different psychological principles and the important issue of child hunger.
I have run this project for seven semesters over the past four and a half years, and the project has been completed with as few as 25 students and as many as 75 students in a single semester, including a course in Statistics and a writing-intensive course in Research Methods. The description below focuses on a version of the project that I used in my Research Methods course.
Overview of the Activity
The project for Kids' Food Basket is literally a semester-long project. Students are introduced to the project during the second week of classes, and they submit their final paper on the last day of class. For this project, each student approaches three friends, family members, co-workers, or other acquaintances with one of three messages asking the person to decorate paper bags for Kids' Food Basket. One message serves as a control condition, while the other two messages use a psychological principle discussed in class. To date, messages have made use of anchoring, image induction, implementation intentions, and social proof. After securing pledges from their bag decorators, students record the data in a spreadsheet used by the whole class and supply their decorators with the pledged number of bags. After a few weeks, students collect the decorated bags and update the spreadsheet with the number of bags each volunteer actually decorated.
While the bag decorators work on their bags, students begin writing a paper about the project. The first step is to locate relevant research articles about the selected topic (e.g., anchoring) and make a reference list. Students also write an introduction, method section, results section, and discussion section. For each section, students receive feedback from the instructor. They must then incorporate this feedback into their final paper, which they submit during the last week of classes. To help them analyze the results, students learn how to conduct and interpret ANOVAs and t-tests using Google Sheets. This project is also connected to several topics covered throughout the semester, such as sampling, elements of well-designed experiments, the four scale types (e.g., nominal), and different types of variables (e.g., dependent, independent, subject). Here is a brief video about the project:
During the semester, a representative from Kids' Food Basket visits the class to share information about the organization, the importance of the decorated bags, and how the organization makes use of data to inform decisions. For example, students learn how the organization uses research methods to test different messages to see which ones lead to the most emails opened, videos watched, and donations made. This discussion also provides a great review of operational definitions (e.g., How should the "success" of a message be defined and measured?).
Evidence of Effectiveness
This project positively affects three groups. First, the project benefits students in my class. Many students have expressed being more motivated to complete the coursework and write a research paper because of the project with Kids' Food Basket. In fact, an anonymous survey of 50 students during one semester revealed that 90% of them agreed or strongly agreed that they were more interested in the research project because it benefited the community. Moreover, 84% of students agreed or strongly agreed that all research methods classes should use a project such as this one for Kids' Food Basket. Only 18% of students agreed or strongly agreed that they would have learned the same amount from the class without the project. Because of these positive feelings about the project, students have recommended my course to others.
The impact on students extends to socioemotional factors as well. It is no secret that anxiety is prevalent on college campuses. Students have reported how the project makes them feel good and improves their mood over the semester. Other students have said that the project lessens their anxiety about financial concerns, workload, and class difficulty, because this project provides perspective, not only leading students to feel fortunate, but also to focus on what really matters. As one student reported, the project "helped me put into perspective the true purpose of life: to love and serve others." Students have also said that the project provided them with a sense of community, inspired them to take part in other service opportunities, and sparked a desire to make financial contributions to nonprofits in the future.
Indeed, the impact of this project extends beyond the semester. Eight months to two years after students completed the project, fifteen students responded to an inquiry about what impact, if any, the project had continued to have on them. Overwhelmingly, one of the greatest effects of the project is that it made students more aware of childhood hunger. As one student wrote, "Professor Jones has provided substantial community service by informing hundreds of students that hunger is not just a world issue but a local issue." In fact, over 50% of students who responded specifically mentioned that the project had increased their awareness of childhood hunger and its effects on kids' education. Many also reported being previously unaware of the scope of the problem in our local community.
A majority of students also reported that, after the course ended, they continued to think about the project and the kids who receive sack suppers. These thoughts have had a variety of effects, and in some instances, inspired students to incorporate Kids' Food Basket into other activities. For example, one student reported getting customers and employees at her bank job involved in decorating bags. Another student reported decorating bags with residents of a long-term care facility. Yet another student initiated a bag decorating party for a school organization. These are just a few of the ways that students were inspired to continue to engage with Kids' Food Basket after the course was over. Nearly 50% of students reported interest in becoming a regular volunteer at Kids' Food Basket, and in at least two cases, they actually became one.
The second ones to benefit from this project were the kids who received sack suppers. Kids' Food Basket regards the decorated bags as the "secret ingredient to success." According to Kids' Food Basket, "Teachers and school staff tell us that kids can't wait to get their decorated sack suppers and that to some children, that extra touch of love and caring makes all the difference." These observations are consistent with Baumeister and Leary's (1995) influential paper on our need to belong and the importance of feeling connected to others. Over the past few years, our action teaching project has resulted in more than 13,000 decorated bags. This number means that over 13,000 times, kids have received words of encouragement, a joke, a beautiful design, or another positive message. Who knows what lasting impact these simple messages may have?
Finally, Kids' Food Basket also benefits from this project. The organization relies on over 200 volunteers each day, and this number will rise as the organization expands to serve more kids. Thus, growing awareness of this organization and its mission is increasingly important. To date, this project has involved over 1,300 people, including more than 320 students and 1,000 bag decorators. Furthermore, many students have recruited friends, family, and co-workers to volunteer for Kids' Food Basket. This project has even resulted in the opportunity to run a professional development seminar for the employees at Kids' Food Basket. Through this seminar, I provided a psychological perspective on volunteerism and fundraising.
Beyond these three groups, the influence of this project indirectly extends to others as well. Through the messages, all bag decorators are educated about childhood hunger in the local area. Furthermore, when an out-of-state colleague learned about this project, she and her colleague ran a similar project. We surveyed our classes about their reactions to the project and submitted the results for presentation at a conference. More recently, a professor from another state expressed an interest in getting instructions on how to run this project with her classes.
Tips on Implementation
Although an instructor may be inclined to have students generate their own research project or be involved in developing the messages for this project, I choose to create the messages for several reasons: (1) Students need to be introduced to the project very early in the course, and the materials have to be created and copied during the first week or two of class to accomplish the learning objectives; (2) My students are pursuing many different majors, so they do not all have a background in psychology; (3) I know the results of past projects, so I have an idea of what has and has not worked well, and finding significant results typically adds to the enjoyment of the project; and (4) A majority of students appreciate being able to focus on implementing the project and writing the paper. Far fewer students have indicated a desire to generate their own message. Students' independent thinking can be encouraged by asking them to write about why unexpected or insignificant results occurred, as well as by generating a few ideas for future research.
The first time I ran this project, students were concerned that they might earn a lower grade if the people they recruited pledged fewer bags or failed to fulfill their pledge. In future semesters, I included a Frequently Asked Questions page in the instructions packet that addressed this misconception, as well as a few other common questions.
Students also enjoy having a speaker from Kids' Food Basket visit the class. Although I provide information about the organization and how our project helps it, students often feel more inspired after listening to the speaker. The value of decorating meal bags is more compelling when explained by a Kids' Food Basket employee, and students frequently report that the speaker was one of their favorite parts of the project. I schedule the speaker halfway through the course for logistical reasons, but if possible, I would recommend bringing the speaker earlier in the course to get students even more inspired about the project from the start.
As for the timing of bag decorations, volunteers in this project pledge to decorate their bags within a 2-week timeframe. For a variety of reasons, however, bag decorators seldom finish within 2 weeks, so we allow them a few more weeks to complete their bags. To assess progress and provide a reminder, students check in with their bag decorators after 7 to 10 days. After about 5 weeks, we have found that bag decorators are unlikely to decorate their bags if they have not started yet. Therefore, after this timeframe, we collect all decorated and undecorated bags, saving the undecorated bags for the next semester. Typically, 75-90% of the pledged bags are actually decorated.
For large pledges (e.g., 100 bags), I would recommend that bag decorators receive an initial batch (e.g., 50 bags) and get the remaining bags after they finish the first ones. Some decorators who pledge 100 bags decorate all of them, but others may not end up decorating any of them. The highest number of bags a decorator pledged and actually completed was 200.
Suggested Variations
I have witnessed many acts of generosity from this project, and the final result is a tangible outcome that everyone enjoys seeing. Students also appreciate that this project does not require funding or asking for money. Although Kids' Food Basket is specific to West Michigan, the idea of decorating bags or including artwork could readily be incorporated with similar programs elsewhere, such as local backpack programs that provide food to kids for the weekend.
Variations of this project are virtually endless, because so many psychological principles can be used when creating messages to motivate volunteers. Moreover, personalized messages of empowerment, encouragement, support, and gratitude on cards, posters, and other items can also be created for a nonprofit group with a completely different mission, such as helping children with medical conditions or special needs. In addition to research methods and statistics, this project can also be used in content courses such as child development, public health, pediatrics, social work, education studies, world hunger, positive psychology, and social psychology.
Overall, this project is very flexible and packs a punch without requiring a large budget or much time. It has provided hundreds of students with an excellent educational opportunity that has a real-world impact and builds a positive relationship between schools and their local community. Each year, I simply purchase a stockpile of paper bags as a donation to Kids' Food Basket and a service to students. The end result is an action teaching project that's now one of the most educationally effective and gratifying elements of my teaching career.
References
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497-529. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497