duckworth lab internship report
TRANSCRIPT
INTERNSHIPREPORT
SUMMER 2020
Leigh Marshall Sammy Rosin Madeline KohnAlissa Zhang
Table of Contents:
2| Meet The Team
3| Grit Lab Workbook
4| Phones Down Experiment
5| Cell Phone Survey
6| Skills Developed
7| Grit Guests
8| Acknowledgements
Page 02
MEET THE TEAM
Leigh Marshall Leigh is a rising junior at Duke University majoring
in Public Policy, minoring in Psychology, andpursing the Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Certificate. Leigh has been interested inpsychology since taking an introductory courseher freshmen fall. She is very grateful to havebeen able to intern at the Duckworth Lab this
summer. Her favorite parts of the internship havebeen creating the Grit Lab Workbook for AngelaDuckworth's Fall 2020 course and collaborating
with her fellow interns!
Madeline KohnMadeline Kohn is a rising senior at Kohelet Yeshiva.She proudly serves as her school's student councilpresident and Model UN team captain. Often foundtalking to strangers, Madeline is fascinated with the
ways psychological science drives personalrelationships and individual's decision making. She
was ecstatic to be a high school intern at theDuckworth Lab and has loved getting to know her
diverse and thoughtful coworkers.
Sammy Rosin Sammy is a rising sophomore at Radnor HighSchool. She is taking AP Psychology next year
and thought this internship would be the perfectprimer. Sammy is so thankful for her amazing
experience and all of her wonderful co-workersat the Duckworth Lab. Her favorite parts of the
internship were creating the Grit Lab workbook,having engaging conversions with Grit Guests
and all of the discussions with her fellow interns.
Alissa ZhangAlissa Zhang is a rising senior at Deerfield
Academy in Massachusetts. She has academicinterests in social and behavioral psychology. Her
interest in psychology is rooted in her six yearjourney as a competitive figure skater and herdifferent job experiences. Her internship at the
Duckworth Lab has been incredibly eye openingfor her, and has deepened her fascination withpositive psychology. Her favorite parts of the
internship were running self-control cell phoneexperiments, having fruitful discussions with herinterns ,and watching Dr. Duckworth’s Grit Lab
lecture recordings.
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GRIT LABWORKBOOK
What it the "Grit LabWorkbook?"
A 50-page document to helpstudents stay engaged in AngelaDuckworth's online seminar "GritLab." All students enrolled in the
Fall course will be sent theworkbook prior to the initial class.
Grit = sustainedpassion andperseverance forespecially long-term goals
What is the format?The workbook is split up by eachindividual lecture. Each section
includes key takeaways, diagrams,and space for reflection. We hope
that this workbook will allowstudents to take intensive notes as
well as make the course moreinteracrtive as it will be virtual this
fall.Grit Lab for High SchoolStudents
As part of our internship, wewere tasked with creating a
recommendation on expandingGrit Lab for high school
students, specifically those atTitle I schools. We created amemo that encouraged the
National Education Equity Lab topartner with Dr. Duckworth in
order to make this idea a reality.In the memo, we came up withseveral recommendations to
make the course adaptable tohigh school students' needs
Divide the lecture into two 45-minute classes twice a weekCurriculum should be focusedon self development, with aslight emphasis onperseverance more so thanpassionDiverse group of "Grit Guests" Increased class activitiesTeacher manual and onlineslack or network
Our MainRecommendations for the
Transition
What Was The Goal? The goal was to see
what were the aspectsor features of a
smartphone and itssurroundings that made
it most tempting toteenagers.
PHONES DOWNEXPERIMENT
Experiment Set Up
Conclusion
IterationsVariability was key. We
mixed up the allotted timethe participant was given toresist their phone, offered
different incentives tocontinue resisting their
phone, changed how manycalls/texts we sent to theparticipant, phone set up,
and how many researcherswere on the call as well.
Given the pandemic, weconducted our experiment over
Zoom. We showed them apresentation with specific
directions about camera setand the "rules" of the
experiment. We asked them totry to avoid their phone for an
allotted time, but made it clearif they wanted to go on theirphone, they could.. To oursuprise, many participantssuccesfully completed thechallenge, inspiring us to
further iterate.
A big takeaway from the experiments was that social desirability/wanting to make a good first impression greatly impacted the
partipants' behavior.
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CELL PHONESURVEY
What Was The Goal? We created a 30 question
survey on Qualtrics, togauge participants' cell
phone temptation indifferent situations. We hope
to send the survey out viaQualtrics Panel, and
reconvene in the Fall toanalyze our data.
ProcessWe quickly learned that
making a survey is harderthan it looks. Over thecourse of 4 weeks weiterated our researchquestions and surveydesign. We ultimately
settled on a 5 point scaleto gauge users cell phone
temptation in differentenviroments and
emotional states. We alsoused stemed questions
that would autoadvance toimprove the participant's
experience.
Feedback The focal point of our survey
was the custom feedbackparticiapnts received aftercompletion. We based the
feedback on user'sresponses on their cell
phone temptaion in variousemotional states. To code
this, we learned aboutscoring, embedding data,
and display logic onQualtrics.
ConclusionBecause we haven't received any of our data yet, the biggest takeawayfrom this survey was in our work ethic. We are deeply grateful to Dr.Duckworth, Paolo, Chayce, and Ben for their feedback and patience
with us throughtou the iterative process.
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Literature ReviewThroughout our ten weeksas interns, we continued toadd to our literature reviewfocused on self-control andcell phones. These papers
helped to guide our researchand filled the gaps in our
knowledge. We created 25entries and synthesized key
information that wasimportant to our projects.
R Studio We analyzed our data
descriptively, using means,standard deviations,
frequencies and distributions ofthe variables. R and R Studiowere the main platforms inwhich we performed dataanalysis. With the help of
Chayce and Ben, we were ableto find bivariate correlations,create histograms, and run t-tests to determine whether or
not our findings werestatistically significant.
Qualtrics Throghout our internship we
used Qualtrics as the platformto collect data about
teenager's phone habits. Welearned about display logic,
proper formatting, and how togenerate feedback based onresponses. We created and
sent out two surveys and areplanning to use Qualtrics Panel
to reach even moreparticipants this fall.
SKILLS DEVELOPED
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GRIT GUESTS
Who Are Grit Guests?Who are Grit Guests: Inspiringpeople from many different
fields of psychology. Many ofour Grit Guests work or have
worked with Dr.AngelaDuckworth, which is how we
connected.
What We Did:Grit Guests would meet with
the interns though Zoom callslasting from 30 minutes to anhour to share their fascinatinglife experiences. They wouldshare their path to how theyfound the career they are in,and engage in conversations
about their extensive researchand discoveries.
Why Grit Guests WereImportant:
These impressive individualshelped broaden the
perspectives of the interns bysharing their extensive
knowledge. The Grit Guests allenthusiastically engaged in
open conversations, where theinterns asked many questions.
Thank You To....Dr. Lauren Eskreis Winkler, Ben Lira Luttges, Dr.Julia Leonard, Dr. Arber Tasimi, Chayce Baldwin,
Dr. Brian Galla, Danny Southwick, ProfessorAbdullah Antepli, Michelle Wong, Dr. Paolo Terni,
Dr. Angela Duckworth, Dr. Veronica Yan
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Dr. Paolo TerniThank your guidance, wisdom,and mentorship throughout theentire internship. We could nothave imagined this internship
without your planning andadvice. You were always there
for us and we will miss you!
Chayce BaldwinThank you for your support and
help this summer. Weespecially appreciate your
patience with us when teachingR and Qualtrics.
Congratulations on becoming adad! We are all so excited for
you.
Benjamin Lira LuttgesThank you for being so
supportive and helpful for usthis summer. We could always
rely on you to help us whenstruggling, whether it was withsurvey questions or Qualtrics.
Good luck with the rest of yourstuides!
Dr. Angela DuckworthThank you so much for giving
us this amazing internshipopportunity to learn and
explore! You have been anincredible role model for all ofus and we hope to be able tomeet and work together again
one day!
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