“Premack principle states that individuals engage in certain behaviors at low frequencies, so these behaviors have low probability of occurrence. Other behaviors are engaged in at high frequencies and therefore have a high probability of occurrence. When low-frequency behaviors are followed by high-frequency behaviors, the effect is to increase the probability of the low-frequency behavior. In other words, any activity a person voluntarily performs frequently may be used as a reinforcer for any activity s/he seldom performs voluntarily.”
~ Alberto & Troutman (2006, p. 222)

Academic writing is definitely one of my low-frequency behaviors and if it doesn’t increase exponentially very soon, I’m in big trouble. Since I obviously find updating this blog very reinforcing (high-frequency behavior), I’ve decided to enforce the Premack principle in my academic writing behavior.

Thus, I am only allowed to update this blog after I have submitted my revision of my qualifier’s introduction and method sections to my advisor 🙁

Today, for the sake of free pizza and soda, I attended the graduate student senate (GSS) meeting. I used to be one of the department’s student representative, but dropped that position this year. Too many things on my plate. Anyway, one of the student was looking for volunteers to be S.T.A.R. tutors.

“S.T.A.R. (Students That Are Ready) is an early intervention program designed to enrich and enhance the academic performance of economically and academically disadvantaged and/or at-risk middle/high school aged children.”

I’ve wanted to do this before, but the program was/is on Saturdays and previously, without the car, I’m always stuck at Duh on the weekends. This time I can actually do it, so I volunteered. It’s an alternate Saturday commitment, about 2 hours each time.

As for the GSS meeting, we (but I only ate and listen) discussed about trying to reduce the technology fee that graduate students have to pay every semester. This broadband connection is not free, I’m paying $150 per semester! And two new grad student clubs were installed: Chinese Folk Dance Club and the Association of Optical Engineers. Chinese folk dance? That’s baffling.

Anyway another student talked about a new club that he wanted to add to the GSS: the cricket club. He was saying that it’s called the gentlemen’s sport and that the team is currently playing competitively. When asked whether women could join the club, he said yes. When asked whether women could play in the tournament, he said since it’s a technical game and it takes a long time to be good at it etc etc…ultimately he said no, but women can join the club and play the easier game and use a tennis ball instead of full cricket gear. I don’t know…if I happen to be at the next GSS meeting when they vote to install this club, I may vote against it. Just because I don’t see women having meaningful participation in this club, and since they do play competitively, I would guess they wouldn’t really have many “easy-use-tennis-balls” game. Not that I want to play cricket, ever since the thumb injury, I’ve developed a phobia of any sport that requires a bat and a ball. Even watching baseball on TV is painful.

Then we discussed what constitutes an open event held by student clubs, and what clubs must do to advertise the open event, in order to receive funding from GSS. There’s also 2 Halloween parties this Friday, and any student who comes to the party dressed as a “graduate student” would be forced to perform the Monster Mash dance on stage. And after a few other announcements, including one about the Jingle Bell Run, the meeting ended.

I was talking to my mom on Skype just now and she asked me whether I’ve got everything done now. And my answer was/is no, right now I have a lot of things on my plate. Here they are, in order of urgency:

1. My qualifying project:

I have to rewrite the introduction and methods sections. I wrote the original proposal semesters ago and since then there are several more important research articles that have been published and that I have to include in the introduction section.

I had my first interrater reliability training today. I trained a fellow student to help me in coding the research articles that’s in my meta-analysis. And I have 2 more training sessions with two other students in the next two days. And once that’s done, I’ll have to wait for them to finish coding the articles that are assigned to them, and then compare their results with mine. If our interrater agreement is 80% and above, then I’m OK, if not, I’ll have to refine my codes.

I still have to review my own coding and do some fine-tuning before I run some statistical test. I’ll also have to make an appointment with the Stats professor just to double check that I’m doing the right statistical tests correctly.

Then I’ll have to write up the results and discussion sections and explain why I got what I got and what the implications are. And all this time, sending my drafts to my advisor for feedback.

Then I’ll have to submit the finished paper to the four professors in the department and work on the presentation scheduled on December 8.

2. Assistantship work

Right now I’m working on “abstracting” (summarizing) 3200 lines of interview transcript for the qualitative part of the research grant. Each transcript takes me about 10 days (3hr per day) to complete. I’m trying to finish the current one by Thursday, and then I still have more transcripts to go through. And this job can be frustrating when I have to keep the interviewee’s words but at the same time making sure I summarize the big ideas.

And I also have to look for research articles for my advisor’s workshop in January.

On November 2, I have to drive 1.5 hrs to Grantville, PA, for the PA Council of Exceptional Children conference. I call it a “booth-sitting” session, mainly there to promote the department’s programs.

3. Teaching assistantship work

I am currently a teaching assistant (TA) in the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) class. I like the science of ABA, unfortunately in real-life-applied-classroom settings, behavior is almost always never clear cut and distinct. Behavior is often messy and makes terrible graphs. Anyway as a TA, I have to grade homeworks and final projects, and next Monday, I’m teaching the class on Generalization and Maintenance. So this week I’ll have to work on the powerpoint presentation and may be come up with some activities for the class to do. And being the TA, I have to help students in their final projects… a lot of problem-solving involved, which I find that I like doing.

4. Other non-academic stuff

I am organizing a farewell party for my friend, Marvin, on November 11. He is graduating and moving to North Carolina soon. This doesn’t take a lot of time, just need to contact some friends, reserve the community room for the gathering, and make sure there’s food on the table on that day.

I just registered for the Jingle Bell Run that’s on December 2. I was talking to a colleague this afternoon and found out that he runs the 5K in 21 minutes! My Komen Race time of 41 minutes really looks bad now…hahaha. So besides all the academic work, I have to keep up my training, and work towards 35 minutes….or less. 30 minutes would be great and this would mean running faster and not letting older ladies overtake me on the running track 🙂

This Saturday, October 28, I’ll be volunteering for World Vision at their booth during the Third Day with the David Crowder Band concert at Lehigh. I managed to rope in Marvin for the volunteering job. We get to watch the concert for free. So I have to be there by 4.30pm and stay till maybe 10pm.

I think that’s it…for now. And now back to my abstracting work…

Serious stuff

An important deadline is approaching-December 8- the day I have to present my qualifying project to the faculty. I have to rewrite my introduction and method sections, analyze and interpret the results of my PBS meta-analysis, and write the results, discussion, and conclusion sections. I’ll also need to recruit several friends to help me code some articles for reliability purposes.

Here are all the important materials that I have to reread and review, and my favorite Lay’s Cheddar and Sour Cream potato chips to keep me going.