Learning the Value of My Research
On February 27th, 2018, I attended the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences (AABSS) annual conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I presented the poster, “Measuring Emotional Intelligence: What Fails to Translate from Theory.” Getting to this conference was a lot of work. Six months earlier, Dr. Barchard had handed me and fellow lab member April Contreras a book, a couple of research articles, and basically said, “Go.” From that point on, right up until we submitted our work, we were challenged to confront 20 years of existing literature that had been generated by scholars who’d been studying the subject for even longer – a daunting task for a couple of undergraduates. In the end, our conference poster proposal was accepted, but it wasn’t until attending this conference that I felt all of our time, energy, and occasional frustration had been worth it.
Over the course of this project, I often felt rather isolated and found myself second-guessing the value of the work we were doing. There are only so many hours in a day, right? In the time I spent working on this project, April, Dr. Barchard, other IMG lab members, and my wife were the only people I’d talked to about this subject area. I knew that Emotional Intelligence (EI) was something other people were generally interested in, but it was only by presenting this research that I was able to see firsthand just how interested people actually were. Scholars and professionals in the fields of sociology, psychology, and even engineering were fascinated by the potential applications of EI, but hadn’t realized how much ongoing debate still exists concerning its measurement. Hooray! Other people really did care after all!
At AABSS, I was able to engage with people about EI in the contexts of child development and management/workforce development, but also with scholars who specialize in quantitative analysis. Several professorial-looking types made the suggestion that we publish our work in a peer-reviewed journal, which absolutely changed my earlier decision not to take this project any further. The conference environment provided me with the opportunity to engage in rich multidisciplinary discussions that I never would have had without stepping outside of the research “bubble.”
The encouragement I received at AABSS had a significant impact on my future academic goals, much more than I’d anticipated. Presenting a poster at AABSS inspired me to continue studying EI in graduate school. As it turns out, the director of the MBA program I’ll start this June at McKendree University is also quite interested in EI. My exposure to EI research in the IMG seems to have opened at least one door I’d never expected. I’m looking forward to seeing how deep this rabbit hole goes…
Carl Langley has been a lab member in the Interactive Measurement Group for two semesters. He began his first semester as a TA for PSY 210, drafted two original conference posters and presented his work at the Nevada Psychological Conference and the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences. He is a psychology major and plans to graduate in Spring 2018. He will begin a Master’s in Business Administration, concentration in human resources, in June of 2018.