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SFU Student

"I did a Directed Studies course under the supervision of Dr. Jodi Viljoen and Jourdan Jackson, a graduate student in the Clinical Psychology program at SFU. I led my own research project on predictors of school fighting in adolescents on probation. The purpose of this research was to examine predictors of school fighting utilizing Bronfenbrenner's ecological framework, to look at predictors from a more holistic perspective (i.e., I looked at individual-level, family-level, and community-level predictors of school fighting). I decided to look at the relationships between suicidal ideation, parental supervision, adult social support and school fighting. To explore these relationships, I utilized secondary data from Dr. Viljoen's lab. Through this project, I became familiar with how to submit an ethics application when conducting research, and also learned how to run a binomial logistic regression using SPSS.

The most enjoyable part about this course was getting to learn more about how predictors of school fighting can possibly differ between adolescents on probation and youth in the general population. Through my literature review, I also enjoyed getting to learn about what support teachers and administrators often provide to prevent school violence, as I hope to one day become a School Psychologist."

Kayla Foley is a fourth year undergraduate student who is completing a Psychology Major and Counselling & Human Development Minor.


This post was originally posted on the SFU Psychology Instagram on March 9, 2021.