2005-06 Hunt Grant Research Report Perceptions of Graduate Admission Directors: Undergraduate Student Research Experiences: "Are All Research Experiences Rated Equally?" Judith Correa Kaiser, PhD, Andrew J Kaiser, PhD, Nick J Richardson, and Edward J Fox St Ambrose University (IA) Application and acceptance rates for PhD and PsyD clinical and counseling programs in psychology show that these programs are highly competitive Knowing which variables graduate admissions committees deem important is critical for undergraduate faculty advisors to inform these students of what graduate programs want from their applicants in order to be chosen for this field of study The primary goal of this study was to find information on how different types of undergraduate research experiences and students' other activities were rated by 237 programs' graduate admissions directors, chairpersons, or their designees Four of 39 variables were shown to be statistically significant and highly ranked by these participants All variables have one thing in common: publication or presentation of research in a referred journal or regional conference Examination of the application and acceptance rates for PhD and PsyD clinical and counseling programs in psychology shows that these programs are highly competitive (American Psychological Association [APA], 2005; Mayne, Norcross, & Sayette, 2006) As faculty members who teach and advise undergraduate psychology majors who are primarily interested in these competitive graduate programs, knowing which variables graduate admissions committees deem important is critical To inform these undergraduates of the factors graduate programs look for in applicants and the importance these programs give to these factors, each year the APA publishes the guidebook, Graduate Study in Psychology (APA, 2005) In addition, books, research articles, and other publications (e.g., Eye on Psi Chi) provide undergraduate students interested in applying to graduate schools recommendations on what to to increase the likelihood of being seriously considered for these very competitive programs (APA, 1997; KeithSpiegel, Tabachnick, & Spiegel, 1994; Mayne et al., 2006; Walfish & Turner, 2006) In general, students who apply to graduate programs in psychology are evaluated on various objective and subjective criteria Objective criteria include Grade Point Average (GPA), scores on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), and in some cases, the curriculum of study completed (APA, 1997; Keith-Spiegel et al., 1994) Subjective criteria evaluated are letters of recommendation, research experience, and autobiographical statements or statements of purpose (APA, 1997; Blashfield, Keeley, Burgess, & Everett, 2005; Keith-Spiegel et al.; Norcross, Hanych, & Terranova, 1996; Walfish & Turner, 2006) A body of research has shown that among the subjective, or second-order, criteria used by graduate selection committees to rate applicants, students' research experiences are rated as some of the most important (APA, 2005; Cashin & Landrum, 1991; Keith-Spiegel et al., 1994; Landrum, Jeglum, & Cashin 1994; Mayne et al., 2006; Walfish & Turner, 2006) Because of these findings, researchers suggest that to increase a student's competitiveness for acceptance to psychology graduate programs, undergraduate programs should provide more research opportunities (Keith-Spiegel et al.) In a study conducted in 2005, Perlman and McCann assessed students' research experiences in undergraduate psychology program curricula They found of the 203 undergraduate psychology programs surveyed, 72% had a research experience course as part of their program requirements Moreover, these researchers found that 88% of departments offered a class with structured research experiences, and 90% of the departments allowed students to conduct individual research projects Given the high percentages of undergraduate programs requiring research experience, one would expect that most psychology students with hopes of attending graduate school would have presented or published some research by the time they graduated with their bachelors' degrees However, it seems that most students did not take advantage of their experiences to publish or present Ferrari and Appleby (2005) surveyed a random sample of Psi Chi undergraduate students who graduated with psychology degrees and found that although the majority of the students had completed research projects, most had not presented any research in conferences nor published It is possible that part of the reason for not publishing their undergraduate research is the high rejection rates from most psychology journals Powell (2000) reported that between 50% to 90% of all research articles submitted for publication are rejected However, according to this author, acceptance rates for undergraduate conferences and undergraduate journals are higher; nevertheless, these venues are not viewed as prestigious as the ones for professional researchers Differences in prestige should not be surprising because they are found even among state, regional, and national conferences and peer-reviewed journals A question that might influence advisors' and their students' decisions to submit research to undergraduate journals is "How graduate selection committees rate this type of research experience when evaluating students for entrance into their programs?" Several studies have been conducted exploring this question Ferrari and Davis (2001) found that faculty members from research universities did not view these undergraduate publications favorably Similarly, Ferrari and Hemovich (2004) found that directors of graduate psychology programs did not view publications in undergraduate student journals as being a significant factor for acceptance to their graduate schools Thomas, Rewey, and Davis (2002) posed a similar question to faculty advisors of students who had published in the Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research The results of this study indicated that faculty advisors believed publications in the Psi Chi Journal were viewed positively by graduate school selection committees Furthermore, these researchers found that the faculty advisors indicated that if they were part of a graduate school selection committee, this type of publication would increase a student's likelihood of being accepted into their graduate program Thus, the literature consistently shows it is important for undergraduate students to possess research experiences (e.g., Ferrari & Davis, 2001; Ferrari & Hemovich, 2004; Keith-Spiegel et al., 1994; Mayne et al., 2006; Walfish & Turner, 2006) However, when it comes to applying to competitive graduate programs, graduate school selection committees seem to rate the value of undergraduate research experiences for students' admittance to their program in different ways (Ferrari & Davis; Ferrari & Hemovich) The primary goal of this study was to examine how different types of undergraduate research experiences were rated by graduate program directors (or the appropriate admission persons) when making decisions about students' admittance to their programs Additionally, we were interested in obtaining information about how students' other activities (subjective criteria) were rated by program directors from these competitive programs METHOD Questionnaires about admission to their graduate programs were sent to the directors or chairpersons (or their designees) of the 237 APA-approved clinical or counseling PhD or PsyD programs These psychology graduate schools were selected from the APA's Graduate Study in Psychology, 2006 Edition (2005) After the 237 graduate schools had been identified using this book, the current director, or chairperson, and the school's current address were confirmed by accessing the graduate school's website The questionnaire used in this study was developed by the researchers and followed a format similar to the questionnaire developed in the research conducted by Keith-Spiegel et al (1994) It consisted of the following scenario and a series of responses which were rated on a Likert-type scale of (not important) to (extremely important): Imagine that you have an excellent pool of applicants for your graduate program These applicants all have high GPAs (3.7 or above on a 4.0 scale), high GRE scores, very good interviews, and strong letters of recommendation Please rate the items listed below in terms of their importance in assisting you to make your final determination of who gets accepted to your program Each director or chairperson (or appropriate designee) received a letter explaining the research and an informed consent form along with the questionnaire Included in this letter was the link that program officials could access if they preferred to complete the questionnaire online The online questionnaire was made available on a secured website attached to the St Ambrose Psychology Department's homepage Both the physical and the online versions of the questionnaire contained identical content After weeks, all 237 graduate school representatives received an email message explaining the purpose of the survey with the link to access it online or thanking them for their participation Because our study allowed for anonymous responses, we could not know which individuals had completed the questionnaires; thus, all program directors received the email Though it was not guaranteed that directors would not respond to the paper version and the Internet version, we believed that these graduate personnel were too busy to fill in more than one questionnaire Data collection ended two weeks after the reminder email message was sent RESULTS Of the 237 surveys sent, 71 questionnaires were completed: 40 by mail and 31 by use of the website The return rate was 30% The means and standard deviations of the ratings for each item are presented in Table in order of most important item considered for program admission to least important A Chi Square Goodness of Fit Test was performed on each variable using as the comparison distribution an equal distribution across the five levels of importance To compensate for inflated Type error rate due to multiple analyses, an alpha of 01 was used All but nine of the variables reached statistical significance (see Table 1) The low mean ratings that were statistically significant for many of the variables suggested that program directors not view these experiences as important for entrance in graduate school Graduate school officials did rate some experiences as important, however More importance was given for program admittance to four of the 39 variables Only findings that were both statistically significant at an alpha of 01 or less and had a mean rating of 3.5 or larger (where is the highest rating) were considered as the most important experiences that could lead to graduate school acceptance Table shows, in order of importance, the four undergraduate research experiences that met the criteria of being rated as very important or extremely important (and statistically significant) for the respondents to make a final decision to accept the students into their program First was undergraduate research experience that led to a publication in a refereed journal, χ2(4) = 36.95, p