HDFS student to present poster at national research conference

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 465 hits

Kim Donovan, a sophomore Human Development and Family Studies major at Penn State Altoona will present her poster, "Measuring Diversity Attitudes in Young Adolescents," at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Ogden, Utah, March 29-31, 2012.

Donovan’s research involves exploring young adolescents’ attitudes toward a variety of diversity domains. Her goal is to understand the degree to which young people think consistently about their attitudes toward different groups or if their attitudes vary depending on the target population they are considering. Donovan hopes to develop a measure of adolescent diversity attitudes which is developmentally appropriate and also sensitive enough to ascertain meaningful changes in attitudes across time.

The research project is supervised by Lauren Jacobson-McConnell, senior instructor in human development and family studies at Penn State Altoona, in collaboration with students and faculty associated with Penn State Altoona’s Undergraduate Social Sciences Research Lab and the Center for Community-Based Studies. The National Conference on Undergraduate Research is an affiliate of the Council on Undergraduate Research.