Progress

On Thursday, October 23, 2010, I had the great opportunity to meet Dr. Acosta. Dr. Acosta is a middle school psychologist who works in an independent school. I was refereed to her by Ms. Davis and Dr. Acosta agreed help work out project the research aspect of my project.

I was very nervous to meet her. I didn't really know what to expect even though I had exchanged a few e-mails with her. My idea of actually conducting a research project was very simple: I wanted to know how shy girls were but mainly what caused them to become self conscious during puberty. I know its something like chemical and hormones that trigger in the body but all this is very basic compared to all the studies that are out there. I am only a high school senior student who still doesn't know too much about the world. This is actually a very complex idea and subject to even try to decipher. From what I've heard this has been a much studied subject and how could I really make a difference by collecting all this information is the main question? The main problem before I met Dr. Acosta was actually how I would really conduct this research? Even though I had learned how to do experiments before in my science classes this research is different. This experiment actually involves people. "Real World Data" as my environmental teacher Jan Ott would say. 

Dr. Acosta was very excited to meet me and help me in anything that I needed. She received me with a smile and made me feel at ease instantly. I had actually sent her an overview of my project ideas before I met her and Dr. Acosta seemed to have ideas of her own to help me. I needed to find a real structure and know how to conduct this research and she was really helpful. My initial idea was only to ask middle school girls from the Chinquapin School how shy they felt they were and if they felt self-conscious about themselves? This is actually very simple from the larger question I was trying to get at. From hearing my ideas, she concluded that my research was probably going to be a comparative qualitative research in which I not only relied on the answers of middle school girls but also older girls from different environments. She made me see that young girls going to puberty might know that they are shy and self-conscious but they don't necessarily are always willing to admit it or have the ability to actually reflect on the fact that they are going through a stage. Older, high school girls, actually are able to reflect and sometimes willing to admit that they were shy and express feelings because of their level of maturity. This was not the beginning of my project, this was actually secondary. 

First I was to learn all about the subject and formulate a "hypothesis". I was glad to hear that because I was already preparing to formulate by reading Joann Deak's books How Girls Thrive and Girls Will Be Girls. She advised me to write Literary Reviews. I had no idea what that meant but she explained that a Literary Review was a summary/review of sources that scientist wrote to actually formulate their research. Reading this two sources was a good idea but I also had to read other sources to make my research more extensive.  Putting all this sources together was the key to having a good experiment. 

I have so many other interesting things to relate from my meeting with Dr. Acosta but I actually want to leave it at that. I was so happy to talk to Dr. Acosta and I wouldn't have been able to conduct a good experiment without her help.  physiologist