The McNair Voice

Isha Metzger (IM) came first in the poster presentation. She tells her secret to our graduate assistant Omer Ari (OA), who has transcribed the interview for you. Read and learn her trick. Before the interview, however, you should read a short summary of her research study printed below.

Summary of Isha’s study

In her research study, Isha used an alternate vocabulary test (i.e., the KidCategories Test) to attain a more comprehensive understanding of the semantic knowledge of African-American children from low-income families (Pena, 2001). She administered both a receptive one-word picture vocabulary test and an alternate test (the KidCategories test based on Nelson and Nelson’s 1990 study) to thirty-nine participants.

She compared responses from the African-American children in her study to those from White American children in Nelson and Nelson’s (1990) study and to those from Latino American children in Pena, et al’s (2002) study. She found that African American children from low-SES backgrounds performed differently from White American children, but they were similar to Latino American children of the same age group.

Interview

(OA) Congratulations on winning the poster competition. Why do you think your poster came first?

(IM) It was well-organized and done in a way in which people from multiple disciplines can look at it and understand exactly what I did.

(OA) Can you tell us about the organization of the poster?

(IM) I started with a little background info section and added a relevancy section so that people who were not familiar with the field would understand why it was an important topic to study. Then I gave my purpose for my study and described the participants. Next, I explained the test I gave in the study in a separate section, which is followed by a results section where I showed how my kids did in comparison to the studies. In this section, I also compared the different categories based on the past studies and showed that my kids in fact were comparable to the Latino American children although they are different from the White American children, but not deficient in comparison. This information of course was included in my conclusions section. Overall, I think the section flow well and are pretty coherent.

(OA) What else do you see in your poster that made the difference for you?

(IM) I would say it is important to make everything simple so that someone coming by who are tired (because they have been perusing other posters in the conference) can look at a specific section and pinpoint the info that they want to find. Also, it is important to make it aesthetically appealing and to make it flow and come together well.

(OA) How did you go about using graphics in your poster?

(IM) I think graphics should be used to summarize anything that would take a lot of words to express. Graphics should complement and enhance the content of the poster.

(OA) Any suggestions about graphics in a poster?

(IM) Graphics should not be too complex, or overpowering. There should be a good balance between graphics, words, and white space. Everything should be labeled clearly.

(OA) What challenges did you face while putting together your poster?

(IM) It was hard to condense all the information I wanted to put in such a small space. It is a challenge to make the poster clear enough so that someone with no or little background info could look at it and completely understand the study. My most important tip would be to pay attention to all the little details. People think it is funny when you obsess about little things, but sometimes it is that attention to detail that pays off in the end. Text should be used in a way which highlights the important points and gets the message across clearly in as few words as possible.

(OA) Poster is certainly another way of disseminating information. Did you feel that it fulfilled the purpose for you?

(IM) Definitely! A poster is a great way to summarize an extensive project and to pinpoint all of the important parts of something that you work so hard on and that you want people to be aware of.

(OA) What did the poster not do for you and your research?

(IM) In comparison to the oral presentation, the poster is shorter and less detailed.

(OA) Congratulations again and thanks for your time.

(IM) You are welcome.