How do I prepare myself to apply for a doctorate degree?

[Pyrepeonies29]

Hello!

 

I've recently graduated with a BA in psychology and I presented my senior project in a conference; I have a very strong interest in researching. Over the past few weeks, I've looked into a research topic idea (in the area of I/O psych) that could develop into a doctoral dissertation. The problem is, I don't know where to go from there.  I know I would need to find a professor/lab who is studying something similar, but I still feel a little lost in how I can accomplish my goal. Can you give me some tips and ideas on where to go?

[mb712]

I/O is out of my comfort domain but it looks like the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology has all sorts of helpful information on their website:

https://www.siop.org/

 

Otherwise, use keywords related to the topic in I/O that interests you to do Google Scholar searches and find people who are researching that topic/similar topics. Alternatively, SIOP has a list of graduate programs in I/O: http://www.siop.org/tip/backissues/tipapr02/02gibby.aspx Youcan look through faculty pages at the schools on this list and find out what they're researching and if anything interests you. 

[TenaciousBushLeaper]

Here's what you do.... you program a bot to search the dark corners of the interwebs, looking for key words you've already pre - specified. Make it a point system (you'll have to specific how these points are distributed), and tell it to return the matches in hierarchal class types (best fit, a little less - best, ect..). Be sure to factor in your GPA, GRE, (potential) institution rank....

As an alternative I suggest the post above (mb712)

[FantasticalDevPsych]

Also not in I/O but I had a similar situation when applying. I had identified specific interests while I was applying so then had to find someone who would hopefully let me study them. To make my list of who to apply to I broke my interests down into subtopics (e.g. what aspect of the literature existing helps inform your ideas). For example I had a list of people that studied children's ability to learn from different media and children's fantasy-reality distinctions while my interests lie in this intersection. I would then do Google Scholar searches to see what had been published and saved papers (since I was also doing lit review for my honors thesis) and authors. I also asked input from my undergrad advisor (a well known tenured prof in my area). If you end up meeting or emailing potential professors then mention that you are interested in projects that examine x specific thing you are interested in and see what they say.

For the program I ended up choosing such work had also paid off as I used this strategy to plan seminars and posters to attend at a confrence where I met my advisor (without such meeting I'd be applying again)!