Report on 30th EFSPA Congress, May 2016
24.10.2016, by Sibylle Classen in meeting report
by Daniel Wigboldus, EASP Executive Committee
During the first week of May 2016, the 30th congress of the European Federation of Psychology Students’ Associations (EFSPA) was organized in Vimeiro Portugal. On behalf of EASP I was invited to represent social psychology during the meeting.
The unique thing about this conference is that it is organized by psychology students for psychology students. The conference is a biennial event that places a particular emphasis on its scientific programme. It brings together more than 150 students from all over Europe for four days of lectures, workshops, and student presentations.
I was honored to contribute to the programme with a lecture and a workshop on “Scientific Integrity in Psychological Science”. Especially the workshop was a great experience. In a room full of highly interested students we discussed concrete dilemmas that researchers may encounter while engaging in psychological research. We discussed the focus on significant p-values, the risks of false positive and false negative findings, the importance of explicitly distinguishing confirmation from exploration and the importance of good theorizing.
I was impressed by the engagement of the students and the high quality of their contributions during the discussion. Also, I was impressed by the student presentations that I attended during the conference. If these students are representative for the future of our field, the future looks bright! I hope that in the near future we may welcome some of them as members of our association.