URA Rachael Blanchard awarded a PURI for her independent study!
Congratulations to undergraduate research assistant Rachael Blanchard for being awarded a Provost Undergraduate Research Initiatives (PURI) for her independent study. Rachael’s project is titled Rater Confidence and Participant Agreement in the Development of a New Functional Assessment. As part of Rachael’s independent study, research staff are asked to report their confidence in administering and scoring a new retrospective functioning interview. Participants then report how well a visual output matches their subjective experiences in each domain (social, role, and well-being). Rachael will evaluate the correlation between raters’ confidence in administering and scoring the assessment and participants’ reported agreement, providing an opportunity to test whether the confidence–accuracy association identified in previous studies applies to this new measure. This study will draw on pilot data from approximately 50 undergraduates at Michigan State University collected during the Spring 2026 semester. This project is designed to strengthen the psychometric foundation of the retrospective functioning interview and contribute to its refinement as a reliable and valid assessment tool.
The College of Social Science PURI program recognizes talented undergraduates and provides them with a $2000 stipend to support their work on a substantial research project. Rachael will present her findings at the 2026 University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum and the 2026 Society for Research in Psychopathology conference. Congratulations Rachael!
