Hello again! I’m back with some updates.
My original project— looking at whether LGBTQ+ teens have different experiences and perceive different levels of support from their online-only friends than their non-LGBTQ+ peers— was slightly derailed because not all of my participants had completed the measure I planned to use to measure perceived closeness at this time. I decided to hold this specific plan for later and instead shifted my focus to completing preliminary analyses on whether or not the LGBTQ+ teens in the population were more likely to have online-only friends in general. Since the data I was working with was already being collected as a part of a larger study, I just altered my analytic plan slightly. Hearing about how my peers had to alter their project plans and the hurdles they encountered was hugely enlightening as I was not very familiar with many of the methods they were using and the specific challenges that each method brought about.
The most valuable thing about this experience was having the freedom to devote time and energy to my work that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, and being able to discuss my work and research at large with a group of peers in similar places with our research experience. Often times, when I’ve been discussing my research experience, it has been with one of two groups of people: those who are directly involved with conducting it as a lead in my lab or those who have no knowledge of psychology research at all. In the rare case that I was speaking to someone with a similar level of research experience it was always another undergraduate RA in my lab, and my understanding of the other research experience possibilities was limited by that. Talking to the other students in my cohort opened my eyes to the world of research and how different conducting research in each field really is and what it physically entails.
My plans for the future haven’t changed drastically and I still hope to do more research on the experiences of LGBTQ+ teens on social media and on online-only friendship experiences. Post-graduation I will pursue higher education, either through a Masters program or by applying for a clinical psychology PhD program after a few years of work.