The Graduate School has selected Victoria Garcia as its March GradBird Scholar recipient. GradBird Scholar is an initiative to recognize graduate students for their scholarly endeavors at Illinois State University.
Garcia is a second year master’s student in the Department of Psychology, the industrial/organizational psychology sequence. Garcia graduated Illinois State University in 2021 with a bachelor of science in psychology and a minor in sociology. In her free time she loves spending time with friends and family. Outside of her studies she also enjoys going to live concerts, hiking and considers herself to be a big foodie. “I enjoy trying new food. A trip to Pop-Up Chicken Shop is always a good choice,” said Garcia.
What is your favorite part of the Psychology Department here at Illinois State?
My favorite part of my program is the great mentorship I receive from the faculty in my sequence. Their mentorship has helped me develop as an academic and a future industrial/organizational psychologist. I like that the program focuses both on research and practice so I can build both of those skills during my time in the program. I also am grateful for all the wonderful graduate students I have met in my cohort and classes.
Do you work with a specific faculty/staff member to help with your research?
I work with Dr. Kimberly Schneider on my thesis. She has helped me navigate through the thesis process, and I am so grateful for her. She is knowledgeable about the field and has served as a great mentor. I also work with Dr. Matthew Hesson-McInnis. The knowledge he has shared on statistics is crucial for my success in my future career. He has also been nothing but warm and compassionate and I am grateful for his support.
Can you explain your research and its importance within your field?
The goal of my thesis is to examine whether mentorship of graduate students has a moderating effect on their work stress, workload, and health symptoms among graduate students. The study will also examine links between work stress and the frequency of graduate students engaging in organizational citizenship (helping) behaviors. We will also examine the impact of workload on organizational citizenship (helping) behaviors. With the use of an online survey of graduate students to assess their perceptions of their mentor(s) behaviors and how helpful such behaviors are in supporting their learning and work as graduate students. My thesis will also assess graduate students’ estimates of their workload and stressors (i.e., amount of work, time spent working, financial stressors), along with minor health symptoms such as headaches and sleeplessness. Finally, we will also assess the frequency of graduate students’ organizational citizenship behaviors that focus on helping other graduate students and going above and beyond in their work as graduate students in class. This research is important as graduate students are at a higher risk of experiencing extreme stress so finding ways to reduce that is of the upmost importance.
Why do you enjoy researching this topic and what more do you hope to learn about it?
I have always been interested in the topic of stress in psychology, so getting to actually study it for my thesis is so exciting. I enjoy researching this topic because it is something I can relate to, so finding a way to reduce stress for future graduate students is exciting. I hope that I get a clearer picture on this topic and am able to help graduate students learn new resources to help with stress.
What do you hope further research about this topic will do to benefit the greater of society?
This research will benefit the greater good of society by providing a way to reduce stress in a highly at risk group. Stress has both psychological and physical negative outcomes, so finding ways to help reduce stress is an upmost priority. Graduate students learning about added resources to help deal with high stress they experience will be helpful after they graduate and move into their prospective career. This has implications not just for graduate students themselves but also their faculty mentors. This information can help faculty in providing more support to this population. This also has implications for the universities as they can add resources for the faculty to help in their mentoring of graduate students. This study also looks at organizational citizenship (helping) behaviors in graduate students which has been largely neglected in the industrial/organizational psychology literature. The research can prompt more research on this population in the future.
Would you like to highlight anything else about your research or promote anything specific you are involved in?
I would just like to remind graduate students that it is important to take care of your mental and physical health throughout the stressful semesters of graduate school. I am also really appreciative that I get to conduct this type of research for my thesis.
