Psychological sciences student wins Three Minute Thesis competition

When writing a master’s thesis, students go through months of diligent research, lab studies, all-nighters, and a lot of hard work – all leading up to one final presentation to defend it. Psychological sciences graduate student Briana Craig had the special opportunity to practice defending her thesis at the JMU Graduate School program’s Three Minute Thesis Competition in January.

During the competition, graduate students presented a current thesis or dissertation project to an audience while competing for a cash prize and the chance to participate in the regional competition. The catch? Participants only had three minutes to present months-worth of information they have been gathering, with only one PowerPoint slide allowed.

Craig presented her research on using propensity score matching and generalized boosted modeling as statistical techniques in a simulation study for research involving test subjects. The goal is to make a treatment group and control group as similar as possible so any differences found in comparison are a result of the treatment. Her thesis, titled “Propensity Score Matching and Generalized Boosted Modeling in the Context of Model Misspecification,” won the competition.

“I remember feeling very stressed about it and feeling very ‘why did I do this?’ but then it felt very validating and rewarding in the end,” said Craig. “I wasn’t expecting to win. It was like, ‘wow, people really latched on to what I had to say and people liked it and I did a good job.’”

Craig admits that it was difficult figuring out how to break down her research into a three-minute presentation, but her main concern was memorizing her script and not forgetting information while presenting.

Speaking to the audience also posed a challenge for the participants. Unlike a typical thesis defense, the students had to present in a “family-friendly” manner for audience members who are not experts in the field, meaning they had to present their research in laymen’s terms. In her attempt to engage the audience, Craig spent a good amount of her presentation talking about Cheetos to address the topic of the counterfactual – possible alternatives for life events that is contrary to what actually happened, or what could have happened.

“When you’re talking about people who live to be 100, a woman once said to me it was Cheetos that was the key to living so long, but we don’t know the counterfactual,” explained Craig. Using Cheetos was her way to help the audience understand technical terms and how the counterfactual can affect research testing, while still keeping it engaging and approachable.

“The beauty of the Three Minute Thesis competition is that a lot of people get caught up in their research and they forget that it’s important to be able to explain what you do to the average person,” said Craig. “Otherwise, your research isn’t going to have a lot of impact because nobody’s going to know the implications of your research.”

Craig will present her thesis again at the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools in Birmingham, Alabama for the regional competition in March. She plans to use the same script from JMU’s competition and is eager for the extra practice presenting her research.

“I’m excited for it… I get to go out and do something that I wouldn’t have done before,” said Craig.