CAD students present at the CHSS Undergraduate Showcase

Undergraduate students from the College of Health & Social Sciences presented their research, scholarship and creative works at the annual CHSS Undergraduate Showcase on Wednesday, May 7, 2025. 

2025 CHSS Undergraduate Showcase — Child and Adolescent Development Participants: 

Virtual playgrounds: Is active virtual reality the future of kids fitness?

Presenters: Gracie Cross and Jaqueline Chan 
Faculty advisor: Rachel Flynn

Children enjoy technology; therefore, it has been used for various health interventions (Staino & Flynn, 2014). Research has shown traditional Active Video Games (AVG, e.g., Wii Fit) can promote physical activity for children and youth (Flynn et al., 2018). However, little research has examined commercially available Active Virtual Reality Games (AVRGs) for children. This poster reports on a pilot study exploring commercially available AVR game play on a Meta Quest headset for 9–13-year-old children at youth development programs. Our research question is: can children’s heart rate (HR) in VR reach similar levels as exercise? We coded heart rate data from the children’s gaming sessions and will discuss the findings of how heart rate increased during different games. The overall goal of these studies is to understand the type of AVRGs that are effective at engaging children while increasing their HR to a level that could be considered physical activity to inform youth, parents, educators and game designers about healthy technology choices. 

The Role of Racial Socialization and Autonomy Support in Asian American Youth’s Identity and Mental Health

Presenters: Jade He and Ashley Lopez Molina 
Faculty advisor: Yeram Cheong 

Racial socialization reflects ways of promoting messages to understand and prepare for potential race-based challenges embedded in society (Hughes et al., 2006) and can be an adaptive process for youth of color’s ethnic-racial identity and mental health (Wang et al., 202). While understanding the role of adolescent’s agency is given more attention in the field, the extent to which adolescent-directed (“bottom-up”) racial socialization and the quality of parent-youth relationship predict youth development among Asian Americans is less understood.  

Drawn from a larger Project ARISE dataset, the study included 460 adolescents who completed online surveys in 2021 (11-19 years old;48% girls, 68% Chinese American, 25% Korean American, 7% Filipinx American) Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that, controlling for participant gender, maternal education, and household income, adolescent-directed racial socialization was associated with lower bicultural identity harmony and more internalizing symptoms. Perceived parental autonomy support was associated with fewer internalizing symptoms, which showed marginally stronger association for mid-adolescence.  

These findings echo the importance of promoting youth autonomy and agency considering the complexities of Asian American family processes. As youth become the socializing agent for their immigrant parents’ sense-making of the racial landscape in the U.S., we need to support their critical conversations by providing culturally responsive strategies that help youth negotiate their bicultural identity and cope psychologically.