Undergrads go to camp, study teen transitions: project tests ways to help youth cope with puberty.
Hall, Olivia M.
Summer camp usually means archery, swimming, and singing around the
fire. But this past summer, human development students Natasha Herrick
'15, Leticia Vasquez '15, and Meredith Moser '15 had a
different kind of camp adventure--their first academic research study.
Working with Jane Mendle, assistant professor of human development,
the three served as research assistants for a pilot study to test
expressive writing interventions with adolescent girls at 4-H Camp
Bristol Hills in Canandaigua, N.Y.
The project, funded partly by the Bronfenbrenner Center for
Translational Research, formed when Tim Davis, 4-H youth development
program leader with Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Ontario
County, discussed possible collaborations at the residential summer camp
with Mendle.
"Everybody knows that puberty is rough on adolescents, as
relationships with parents and peers are changing," Mendle said.
"Our lab, like a lot of others interested in puberty, tends to
focus on the consequences of puberty, which can include depression,
anxiety, externalizing or 'acting out' behaviors, poor
self-esteem, and body dissatisfaction. We wanted to explore what happens
if we intervene before teens get to that point."
Mendle's research assistants lived at Bristol Hills and
recruited 45 girls, ages 11 to 13, with the help of free slushies. (Boys
will be included in a future study.) During six, weeklong camp sessions,
the RAs gathered with the girls after lunch for an exercise in
expressive writing, which Mendle describes as "a brief, focused
intervention, in which people write about times of change in their
lives."
After filling out a standard psychological questionnaire on the
first day, the girls spent 20 minutes daily writing about their
relationships with their families and friends and changes taking place
in their own bodies.
Though the data have yet to be fully analyzed--Mendle is planning
to send out a follow-up questionnaire soon--the research partners are
pleased with the outcomes to date of this first-time collaboration.
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"4-H camps put a real emphasis on how the camp experience will
develop the whole child," said Davis. "This year we were
really able to pilot how we can work with faculty to do research at the
camp while greatly benefiting our campers."
Mendle hopes to use the pilot data to write a grant proposal that
will expand the study to include a control group and show more clearly
how the writing intervention provides positive benefits to adolescents.
The undergraduate assistants, for their part, found their interest
in working with adolescents confirmed. "This research helped to
further convince me that children in this age range and young adults are
the focus I'd like to pursue later in life if I ever have my own
private practice as a therapist," said Vasquez.
Herrick, Moser, and Vasquez assisted with the study as part of the
CCE Summer Internship Program, which provides opportunities for students
from the College of Human Ecology and College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences to support research and outreach projects in communities around
the state.
For more information:
Jane Mendle
jem482@comell.edu
Olivia M. Hall, PhD '12, is a freelance writer and
anthropologist.
