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Contact: University Communications & Marketing
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Students receive nat'l social science award
May 9, 2003
CARROLLTON, GA - A team of University of West Georgia undergraduate students received the award for Best Student Research Paper at the recent annual meeting of the National Social Science Association in Las Vegas.
Math major Brian Bockelman of Snellville, chemistry major Rhett Bridger of Albany and psychology major Amanda Bradley of Carrollton share the $1,000 award for their report about a semester-long study they completed in a fall 2002 Honors marketing course taught by Dr. Beheruz Sethna, professor of business administration and University president. Sethna was the students’ faculty advisor for the project, titled “Papa John’s Pizza — A Cut Above the Competition.”
This
is the first time any students from West Georgia have presented research
at the NSSA conference. The team’s paper was chosen for recognition
from among 28 student research papers accepted for presentation there,
with no distinction made between graduate and undergraduate projects.
“From next year onwards, they will have separate research competitions for graduate and undergraduate students, but this year all student papers were judged together, and our undergraduate students beat all the other student research papers — graduate included — and some from doctoral and research universities such as Vanderbilt,” said Sethna. “This is doubly meaningful to me — as president to be sure, but perhaps even more so as professor in the course in which this project was completed, and as faculty advisor to the team.”
Dr. Donald Wagner, dean of the UWG Honors College, said, “Professor Jerry Baydo of California State University, NSSA’s executive director, said that this was the most intense and difficult decision the faculty judges have ever had to make because of the exceptional number of quality student papers. Dr. Baydo was one of the panel of faculty judges.”
The winning team began their project in the fall in an upper-level Honors marketing course designed for students who are not marketing majors. After an intensive introduction to marketing and statistics, classmates break into teams that work on marketing projects for local businesses.
Bridger, Bradley and Bockelman did market research among UWG students for Papa John’s Pizza of Carrollton. In an effort to increase student responses to a survey for the restaurant by making the process fun, they used Sethna’s course strategy of holding a carnival in which students played games to win prizes and answer marketing questions. The carnival was so successful, it netted 430 responses.
“We chose Papa John’s because they were interested in a student sample, and that’s what we could provide them,” said Bridger. “We came up with an innovative way of collecting data, and because of the high response rate we were able to run a lot of statistical tests.”
Sethna noted, “It is important to point out that while the carnival idea is one that I brought with me, the actual games are designed by the students: the design of the carnival — i.e. where you enter, where you play, what you play, how you play, what questions are answered by your throwing of a dart or spinning a wheel, what prizes you get and how you earn them, etc.”
In addition to offering guidance during the class, Sethna agreed to act as the trio’s faculty advisor when they decided to enter the project in competition to be presented at West Georgia’s Big Night 2003: An Evening of Student Scholarship.
Bradley said, “He worked with us for hours on end, staying in his office sometimes till 10 o’clock at night — doing everything to make our presentation the best it could be.”
As
a result of their efforts, the three won the honor of presenting at Big
Night as representatives of the Richards College of Business before going
on to make a presentation at the NSSA meeting.
The project, said Bockelman, helped him to develop a new “life tool”
in the form of a broader understanding of advertising’s effects.
“I got a glimpse at how marketing and business works . . . and how
they affect — and how they try to affect — their target audience.”
As for the NSSA honor bestowed on their work, all three teammates expressed surprise at their accomplishment.
“I think we were pretty thoroughly surprised,” explained Bockelman. “I mean, here we were — three non-social sciences majors at a social sciences conference — competing against grad school students, and we managed to carry away the Best Paper award. I think we definitely put in the work on the project and it was deserving, but we were surprised nonetheless.”
The three have also submitted an abstract to the National Collegiate Honors Council in the hope of presenting their research at its annual meeting. For three of the last five years, West Georgia has had more Honors students’ research proposals accepted for presentation at the National Collegiate Honors Council’s annual meeting than any other U.S. college or University.
Other student presenters at the recent NSSA conference were from Central Washington State University, East Tennessee State University, Lane Community College, Morehead State University, Morgan State University, the University of Nebraska, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Texas at Tyler and Vanderbilt University.
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