USF College of Nursing Instructor Debra Gottel Receives CREATTE Scholar Recognition

University of South Florida College of Nursing Instructor, Debra Gottel, MSN, MHS, RN, received recognition from USF Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) for being a CREATTE Scholar. As a CREATTE Scholar, Gottel enhanced the curriculum for undergraduate students by mentoring students through an advanced undergraduate research course.

CREATTE, a scholarship program developed by OUR, stands for Creating Research Experiences and Activities Through Teaching Enhancement. This program helps stimulate interest and activities in research among undergraduate students within the classroom setting. OUR also offers small grant opportunities and support for undergraduate research incorporated within didactic courses. Gottel was named 2012-2013 CREATTE Scholar in August 2012. She received a grant to purchase equipment for the simulation and to develop a research project with students from the psychiatric mental health nursing course.

“USF College of Nursing students taking the fall psychiatric nursing course were offered the opportunity to participate in a non-credit advanced research course that would entail designing a research project stemming from their simulation lab experience that they would have later in that semester,” Gottel said. “Fifteen students enrolled in the course, and throughout the fall and the spring semesters have engaged in the full research process.  They have been accepted to present their research poster entitled, “The Impact of a Simulated Auditory Hallucination Experience on Nursing Students’ Attitudes toward People with Mental Illness.’”

The poster they created has been accepted for presentation at the Undergraduate Research and Arts Colloquium which will be held at the USF Marshall Center on April 17, 2013. The students will be competing for scholarship awards and a best poster award at the symposium, Gottel said. All fifteen students will be participating in the poster presentation.

The undergraduate students were divided into teams in order to accomplish the research. In the fall semester, a group of students worked on the literature review, defined the research questions and hypothesis, and completed the IRB application–which included all students completing the required ethics and compliance training. For the spring semester, the group was divided between the intervention, analysis, and poster teams.  The intervention team worked with the faculty to fully develop the virtual hallucination experience by writing new activity templates, setting up the supplies, and working as “faculty” during the intervention.  The analysis team became familiar with basic use of the computer program used for statistical analysis, SPSS, and interpretation and presentation of data.

“My role as the CREATTE scholars faculty member was to provide leadership for the project, as well as to mentor the undergraduate students and the nursing doctoral student, Julie Daugherty, who has been the primary co-investigator for the project,” Gottel said. “Jerrica Farias, BSN- PhD student, has also assisted with the project.  Working with Daugherty has provided a wonderful opportunity to work as a team with a doctoral student knowledgeable in the research process.”

USF Nursing undergraduate student, Ashley Huesman, who is part of Gottel’s psychiatric mental health nursing course for spring 2012 said she has learned more than she expected from doing research through CREATTE Scholars.

“This research, with the help of Ms. Gottel, has given me the opportunity to collaborate with a team and build an experience from scratch,” Huesman said. “I am thankful for this experience because it has been a building block for my future as a nurse and has given me further guidance in continuing my education. For the College of Nursing, I believe this program gave an opportunity to undergraduate students that we otherwise might not have been able to obtain. I was also able to have a hand in providing the college with support for the Psychiatric/Mental health curriculum in how important it is to continue with the simulation as part of the program.”

For more information on CREATTE and USF Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) visit http://lib.usf.edu/undergraduate-research/.

For more stories on Debra Gottel click here.