Students and lecturers of Master program “Applied social psychology” at the Summer School

Summer School was devoted to teaching the art of writing scientific articles for the prestigious international peer-reviewed journals. The lecturers of the summer school were the leading experts in cross-cultural psychology and socio-cultural research methodologies. Three of them - professor of Hebrew University in Jerusalem  Shalom Schwartz, professor of the University of Giessen  Peter Schmidt  and professor at the University of Tartu  Anu Realo  - are regular partners and teachers of the Master program  "Applied Social Psychology".

The summer school consisted of two forms of work - lectures and workshops. Professor of University of Sussex  Peter Smith  delivered a lecture and a workshop on cross-cultural management. He described the impact of informal networks in organizations around the world, cross-cultural differences in understanding of leadership, organizational commitment, and many other aspects of the applied cross-cultural psychology. In another lecture he gave answers to basic questions that the editor of scientific journal may arise to the author. For participants of the school it was very valuable to get this information first hand, as Peter Smith has extensive experience in reviewing scientific articles and he was editor of the international scientific journal. The second block of lectures was devoted to social capital. Professor of Utrecht University  Hank Flap  spoke about theory and measurement of social capital.

In workshops led by Shalom Schwartz, Peter Schmidt and Anu Realo participants of the school had the opportunity to get feedback on their research and significantly improve their work. The first part of the seminar entitled  "Formulating hypotheses"  explained in detail how to formulate a research problem and to build a theoretically grounded hypotheses. The second part of the seminar -  "Designing questionnaires"- was devoted to the development of social and psychological questionnaires. The third part -  "Writing and revising papers"  –was devoted to the scientific subtleties of style and the correct execution of each section of a scientific article.

Among the participants of the Summer School were members of the ILSCR, faculty of the Master program "Applied Social Psychology"  Nadezhda Lebedeva(organizer of the Summer School),  Alexander Tatarko,  Maria Efremova,  Zarina Lepshokova, students of this program - Maria Bulatova, Lyubov Cherkasova, as well as undergraduate senior students who plan to enter the program. To participate in summer school applicants were required to submit a scientific paper in English. Students had the wonderful opportunity to improve the quality of their bachelor’s and master's theses.

According to the participants’ reviews, the school was of the highest professional level, and they received great benefit from communication with experts about their articles and discussing their work with colleagues in a friendly atmosphere. The following year, the laboratory plans to organize a new school with the participation of leading scientists again.

Olga Pavlenro