Education | UM students win psychology awards with locally themed studies

Four students from the University of Macau’s (UM) Department of Psychology won the best student poster awards for their senior honors thesis poster presentations at the 2018 American Psychological Association (APA) Convention. The APA is one of the oldest and most respected psychology associations in the world.

This is the first time undergraduate students from UM’s Department of Psychology have received the best student poster awards at the APA Convention, according to a statement from the university.

The students’ supervisor is Professor Brian Hall from the same department. The poster presentations are part of Professor Hall’s ongoing public health research program in Macau, and all the projects and data originated in the MSAR.

The posters presented by Yang Xinyu, Lao Chao Kei and Yip Sheung Yan at the convention concerned Macau’s large population of Southeast Asian migrant workers. They were titled “HIV/Syphilis rapid testing uptake correlates among Southeast Asian migrant workers”, “Psychometric properties of the PHQ-9 and the GAD-7 among female Filipino domestic workers” and “Validation of the PTSD Checklist-5 for Filipino domestic workers”, respectively.

Yang and Lao both received first prize, while Yip received second prize in the student poster award contest from the Division of International Psychology (Division 52).

Meanwhile, Xiong Ying Xin’s poster was titled “An exploration of disaster and social media exposure on PTSD: A study of Typhoon Hato in Macau, China”. Xiong received first prize in the Division 56 (Trauma) student poster awards.

More than 100 undergraduate and postgraduate students submitted posters to this year’s convention. All the award-winning students come from UM’s Global and Community Mental Health Research Group under the Department of Psychology, and are also members of the Honors College.