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MSW students interested in independent research can apply to participate in a two-semester Research Project Seminar. Candidates for this program, available to second-year MSW students (approximately seven students per year) will work with Professor of Research Trudy Festinger, DSW, a nationally recognized expert on child adoption and foster care. First-year MSW students can apply for the Seminar during their Spring semester.

All students enrolled in the Seminar have the opportunity to carry out their own quantitative study from beginning to end. In the first semester, students:

• develop a question to investigate;
• complete a short literature review;
• decide on a sample and a design;
• develop relevant instruments; and
• complete a proposal for review by the NYU Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects.

During the second semester, students commit to:

• pilot their instruments and collect the data for their study;
• spend time in a lab learning statistical software (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, or SPSS) in order to complete the analysis of their data;
• write a report; and
• present to fellow students and faculty.

Research Project Seminar students engage in a mixture of seminar and independent study. Seminar students meet as a group and also have individual meetings with Dr. Festinger.

Examples of Seminar projects for the latest academic year (2007-2008) include:

• Differences in the Adult Economic Socializations of Boys and Girls
• Perception of the Facilitator in LGB Group Work
• Attitudes of NYU Undergraduates Towards Social Workers
• Supervisor Self-Disclosure and Working Alliance
• Achievement Motivation of Students with Disabilities
• Attitudes Towards Mental Health Among Korean Students
• Responses to Depression Scale Versions

Trudy Festinger is a professor of Research at the Silver School of Social Work, New York University. The studies she has conducted include a follow-up of youths discharged from foster care, studies on rates and correlates of adoption disruption and factors related to foster care reentry, evaluative studies of adoption procedures in New York City, a study on the vision and hearing of foster children, and research on rates of adoption dissolution and post-adoption service needs. She is on the advisory board of the N.Y.C. Administration for Children’s Services, on the Board of Directors of the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York City, and is vice-president of the Kenworthy-Swift Foundation.