The First Year Research on Social Habits (FROSH) Study
Advance science along with your friends!
Photo by Eliott Reyna on Unsplash
Who?
The SCAN lab in the Psychology Department is inviting all incoming first-year students at Columbia University to participate in a longitudinal research study about students’ social and emotional lives during the transition to college.
What?
If you join FROSH, you will answer surveys about your emotions, academic achievements, and social relationships with other students at Columbia several times during the year.
To understand better your day-to-day experience as a freshman, we also include optional in-the-moment surveys sent to your smartphone several times throughout the year.
How?
Everything is online and can be completed entirely from your home!
We will invite you to download our custom application so you can participate in the study directly from your smartphone. You will receive notifications from the app when you have surveys ready to answer. From the moment you receive a survey, you will have one week to complete it before it expires.
If you agree to participate in the second part of the study, you will also have the opportunity to complete brief in-the-moment surveys. Throughout the semester, our app will send you a morning and evening survey daily for four 10-day periods.
Why are we conducting this research?
The purpose of this project is to understand the interpersonal (e.g., social relationships and networks) and intrapersonal (e.g., emotional and self-control tendencies) factors that affect health, wellbeing, and academic success during the transition to college at Columbia University.
This unique study aims to develop a comprehensive picture of what it’s like to be a freshman in college by surveying students’ social networks and emotions at multiple points throughout the year, at different time scales (year, months, days).
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
Why should you participate?
You can earn up to $255 for your participation!
In addition, at the end of the academic year, you will receive a personalized report including graphs that show how your answers to various questionnaires related to your social networks, academic engagement, priorities, and wellbeing changed over the course of your first-year of college.
Testimonial
“I liked having a space to reflect a little on how my time at the university was going, because a lot of the times I am so swept up in what I have to do that I don't have time to reflect.”
“I enjoyed inputting the names of students because it allowed me to reflect on how my relationships had changed and which new relationships I formed.”
“I found it useful to think about my goals in concrete terms and watch how things changed over the course of the semester. I liked seeing concrete progress and measurements of my goals.”
“I liked thinking about my day and how we could even report small things that made us feel positive or negative emotion. I thought it was nice even just to get it out."
“[Enjoyed this study] a lot! It helped me recall fun memories and ups and downs of freshmen year. “