Research That Doesn’t End When Summer Does

Like all scientists, psychology major Clair Markwell ’27 set out with a question for her summer research project: For the one in seven young people with a mental health disorder, does having an informal social gathering space in their routines improve how they feel?

And like many research projects that have a fixed timeline, her results led to, well, more questions.

“Right now my current sample size is really underpowered, so some of the relationships I was looking at I might not have found for that reason,” Markwell said during her research presentation at this week’s Summer Undergraduate Research and Internship Symposium, the capstone event of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). “I’m looking forward to recruiting more participants in this study to reanalyze my data and see if I find any other significant data to see relationships with anxiety and depression.”

And at Trinity University, she can do just that. Not only have Markwell and her fellow SURF participants been able to engage in work usually reserved for graduate students, but she and many others will continue their research in the coming academic year.

Under the mentorship of Psychology Professor Erin Wood, Ph.D., Markwell set out to survey 200 Texas adolescents on how participating in a third space group impacted their symptoms of anxiety, depression, fixed emotion mindsets, and involuntary dysregulation (automatic physiological or emotional overreaction to stress).

Markwell thought third spaces, where people can socialize outside of work/school and their own homes, might be a key driver in better mental health outcomes. These can be sports facilities, faith-based organizations, social clubs, or hobby groups. “I really like the idea of seeing community as a way for people to overcome adversity,” she says. 

Turns out, she was only able to reach 58 adolescents for her survey, which gave her a snapshot but far from a full picture. She did find that third spaces had an impact on mental health, but it’s unclear whether the overall effect is positive. Some leisure activities, for example, might actually increase stress levels. So different types of third spaces could lead to different outcomes. 

That just means there’s more work to be done. “I’m looking forward to collecting more responses from participants to see if what I have found so far changes with more participant power or stays the same,” she says.