Summary Report of Teaching and Learning Grant
Title: Understanding Student Veterans who are Psychology Majors
Project Director: Dr. Ho Phi Huynh, Psychology
Collaborator: Dr. Jennifer Wyse, Sociology
Project Goals:
The primary purpose of the proposed project is to improve teaching and advisement of student
veterans who major in psychology. The long-term goals of the project were to: 1) examine if
veteran psychology majors are seeking knowledge about social processes to help them navigate
civilian life after military service; 2) examine the long-term goals of veteran psychology majors,
especially their career aspirations and post-graduation plans; 3) identify current teaching and
advisement strategies that are effective for veteran psychology students.
Description of Project and Outcomes:
Dating back to the post World War II era, researchers have attempted to address the unique
needs of veterans in college, however, no research speaks to the specific needs of student
veterans who choose psychology as a major. These students may differ from traditional
students or from student veterans who are not psychology majors. Our project explored these
differences to help improve the teaching and advisement of these students.
During Spring 2014, we recruited Armstrong psychology students to participate in an online
survey. Because the project addressed a novel question, we asked broad questions and
recruited a wide range of participants to allow us to explore this topic with a wide lens. For
example, students answered open ended questions about their career aspirations, challenges
they experience in the classroom, and effective teaching strategies they have encountered. For
example, “What do you intend to do with your degree after you graduate?”; “What are some
teaching methods/strategies that your current or past psychology professors do well that you
like?”; “What is the biggest challenge to you as a student veteran majoring in psychology/taking
a psychology class?” Additionally, instead of restricting our recruitment to only psychology
majors who are veterans, we recruited all active and retired military service members, and their
family members including spouses and unmarried partners. A summary of demographic
information for our sample is presented in Table 1.
We conducted a thematic analysis on the open-ended responses. Because of the diverse
participant sample and our broad approach to the questions, relatively few themes emerged.
Regarding the biggest challenge that these students faced, they indicated that the significant
age difference and the difference in lived experience were barriers to connecting with their
peers. Additionally, across all responses, nine participants mentioned PTSD. The majority of the
students noted that they appreciated that PTSD was discussed during classes and these
discussions helped to validate either their own, their spouse’s, or their comrade’s struggles with
the illness. However, one student stated that it was difficult to discuss PTSD with other students
because it may further reinforce the stereotypic connection between veteran status and having
PTSD. Despite the emergence of these trends, none of these themes reached significance
because there were not enough responses to achieve data saturation.
Despite not reaching significance for any of the themes, we still consider this exploratory study
a great success. We have a better picture of what veteran psychology students look like and
these findings will greatly inform our future studies. In fact, with these preliminary findings in
mind, we are currently designing a follow up study to address three critical elements. First, we
will institute a stricter inclusion criteria; specifically, we will only recruit psychology majors who
are active or former military service members. Secondly, based on the themes that emerged,
we will be able to ask more pointed questions about PTSD and their relationships with their
peers. Finally, we will expand our sample to include other universities in the southeast region.
This process will enable us to further understand military service members in the region and
helps to solidify Armstrong State as a leader in education and research concerning military
service members.
Scholarly Output:
We will present a poster at the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s 14th Annual Conference
on Teaching, October 16-17, 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia. This will be great opportunity to present
our preliminary findings and also solicit additional partners for our follow up study.
Additional Information:
We greatly appreciate the funding we received for this project. We believe it was critical for
completing the project in a timely manner.
Table 1
Participants’ Demographic Information
Total n
59
Female
39 (66%)
Year in School
--
Freshman
13 (22%)
Sophomore
14 (24%)
Junior
14 (24%)
Senior
9 (15%)
Graduate
5 (8%)
Other
4 (7%)
Major
Psychology
21 (36%)
Bachelor of Science Track
13 (62%)
Bachelor of Arts
8 (38%)
Other
38 (64%)
Military Affiliation
Spouse
22 (37%)
Veteran
20 (34%)
Reserve
10 (17%)
Other (E.g, Boyfriend, Ex-spouse)
7 (12%)
Age
Mean (Standard Deviation)
-29.10 (8.30)