Jennifer Samson, Ph.D.
Biography
Dr. Jennifer Samson has a background in Developmental Psychology, specifically children’s relationships, as well as in experimental design and quantitative methods (statistics). She teaches the Psychology research methods sequence and in addition, courses in Introductory Statistics within the Gen Ed program, Regression in Social Sciences (an advanced Statistics course that is also part of the Data Analytics initiative), and Developmental Psychology.
Dr. Samson enjoys teaching these methods and statistics courses in particular because she is able to see first-hand students’ tremendous growth in these sometimes “scary” subjects over the course of the semester or the year. She also loves the seemingly endless ideas for new research questions her students propose! In her Developmental courses, she is most proud when she’s able to introduce students to the idea of seeing human development through a scientific lens and then applying what they learn to their own experiences. Dr. Samson’s Developmental course is usually online, and she has invested significant time and energy into Quality Matters training and course revision to take full advantage of the online modality for supporting student learning.
Dr. Samson’s primary research interests include children’s relationships and correlates of aggressive behavior, but her primary methodology these days is meta-analysis – which she has applied to such diverse areas as bullying, brief interventions for alcohol use, young children’s learning from video, and motivation and belongingness in first-generation college students. She regularly includes students on her meta-analysis projects as well as supporting them in pursuing their own research interests; her students are regular contributors to the Marking Excellence showcase at Queens as well as to larger conferences such as the Southeastern Psychological Association (SEPA)’s annual meeting.
Dr. Samson lives with her husband and their three cats, who occasionally provide examples (and, of course, cute pictures) for class.