Assist in an evaluation of school wellness policies to support wellness policy development and implementation.
Research assistants are needed in the Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences to work on an evaluation of WNY school wellness policies. Research assistants will gather local school district wellness policies through an online search and use the standardized Wellness School Assessment Tool (WellSAT; https://wscc.wellsat.org), Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC; includes 10 components of school wellness) to score the comprehensiveness and strength of the policies. Research assistants will be involved in the creation of data reports that will be shared with schools/school districts to support their wellness policy development and implementation.
This research experience will be under the leadership of Dr. Ann Kuhn, who conducts community-based studies in the area of school health, physical activity, and wellness policy implementation.
All incoming research assistants must be able to commit to at least 8-10 hours of research per week. There will be more research opportunities in Spring 2023 for in-person data collection with school teachers in the form of conducting semi-structured interviews to understand needs/barriers to implementing school employee wellness programs and collecting physical activity data using accelerometers.
Interested students can apply by emailing a resume to annkuhn@buffalo.edu, using "Student research assistant resume Fall 2022" as the subject of the email.
The specific outcomes of this project will be identified by the faculty mentor at the beginning of your collaboration.
Length of commitment | About a semester (3-5 months) |
Start time | Fall 2022 |
In-person, remote, or hybrid? | Hybrid |
Level of collaboration | Small group project (2-3 students) |
Benefits | Research experience, academic credit, volunteer |
Who is eligible | All undergraduate students |
Ann Kuhn
Assistant Professor
Exercise and Nutrition Sciences
Phone: (716) 829-6788
Email: annkuhn@buffalo.edu
The specific preparation activities for this project will be customized through discussions between you and your project mentor. Please be sure to ask them for the instructions to complete the required preparation activities.
school, health, wellness, policy, exercise and nutrition sciences