Rising senior Emma Maloberti is one of six students selected for the ninth consecutive Summer Research Fellowship at Westminster College. The criminal justice and psychology double major from Cranberry Township, Pa., is researching “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adolescent Behavior” with Westminster professors Dr. Shannon Smithey, political science, and Dr. Jamie Chapman, criminal justice studies. 

Maloberti works in the admissions office on campus and is a captain on the Westminster women’s soccer team. She is a member of the psychology club and is social media chair for the campus club SPARK—Strengthening Positivity and Reinforcing Kindness— a student-led branch of The Smile Project whose mission is to teach people about positivity and the importance of a smile. Maloberti recently completed an internship with the Arise crisis shelter in New Castle. 

Can you provide some details about the project? 
For my senior capstone research project, I will examine the long-term impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), adolescent deviant behaviors and school-related deviance on adult life outcomes. Specifically, I will be exploring how early exposure to adversity and engagement in deviant activities during adolescence are associated with various aspects of adulthood. The goal of this research project is to better understand the lasting effects of early life experiences on adult functioning and well-being. I will also be looking at the different characteristics that individuals have which moderate the relationship between my three intervening variables. 
 

How are you conducting your research?
I plan to recruit research participants using a specific type of crowdsourcing called MTURK. Rather than sampling participants from Westminster College, crowdsourcing will allow me to collect data from an extensive, diverse and representative sample of the population, which is critical for my study given the low base rates I am investigating. This approach ensures that I can gather data from a wide range of individuals, improving the generalizability of my findings. I am aiming to gather 200 participants through MTURK, who will respond to a self-report questionnaire. I plan on operationalizing my concepts by asking participants to respond to subsequent surveys within the self-report questionnaire that are specific to each domain I am interested in studying.  
 

How did you become interested in this topic for your summer research project? 
I participated in Dr. Chapman’s class, Sociology of Violence and Nonviolence, last fall semester. She mentioned the idea of conducting a senior capstone project on school violence. From there, this project was created. I wrote a paper on ACEs in that same class, which is how I got the idea for ACEs to be one of my variables. Instead of focusing on violence, as it was too broad of a variable, I chose to study school deviancy and adolescent deviancy. Before the spring semester ended, Dr. Smithey and I discussed what my dependent variable would be. We decided that looking at later life outcomes in adults would be interesting to see if they had experienced one of those three independent variables and how their adult lives look now. Both Dr. Chapman and Dr. Smithey advised me to apply for the Drinko Summer Fellowship so I could get a head start on this project since it will be serving as my capstone senior research project.  
 

What have you learned from the research so far?
While conducting this project in its early stages I found that more people than not have experienced a type of ACE during their childhood. The more ACEs adolescents have, the higher their likelihood of committing adolescent deviancy. However, while doing my research I have found that the direct impact of ACEs on school deviance remains insufficiently inconclusive. There is a noticeable gap in literature regarding this specific relationship. This is one of the reasons why I am conducting this research project to help address this gap by exploring how ACEs influence school deviant behaviors.

“This project means a lot to me. I have been working on this proposal with Dr. Chapman and Dr. Smithey since the end of last fall semester. Being able to see it come together with the faculty guidance has made me proud to be a social science major. I think it’s important for students like me to be able to conduct projects on social science topics because of the little attention they receive. Overall, I am excited to see how this project unfolds and what the results are going to be.” said Maloberti.

Learn more about Westminster’s School of Social Sciences, click here.

Sponsored by the Drinko Center for Undergraduate Research, Summer Research Fellowships at Westminster College allow students to conduct hands-on research and creative projects under the guidance of our experienced faculty mentors. 

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