By Anne Traynor, PhD, Associate Professor, Educational Psychology & Research Methodology

Winding up the mountain road to the airport in the morning darkness, I hoped I might return soon to the “Surprise City.”  We accomplished a great deal during my Fulbright Specialist exchange to the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia-Pasto and Universidad de Nariño, and I considered the prospect of more time.

From the day that I arrived, I worked with faculty at the two local universities (Drs. Ana Cristina Mafla, Cooperativa, and Mauricio Herrera-López, Nariño) to deliver a series of workshops about psychometric statistics for the health sciences -- multidimensional item response models and network models.  To teach undergraduate Psychology students, Statistics Master’s students, and faculty a systematic decision-making process for applying these models, we linked the foundational concepts across the two topics, then guided the participants to investigate several use case examples.  The sessions were scheduled for a lecture format, but shifted toward a running discussion after the first day, as participants raised deeper questions about appropriate uses of the models.  The students were particularly excited about network models and their potential applications in psychology and other fields.

When we came to software application of the techniques, I was glad that I had invested time in producing a Spanish-English translation of the lab materials, which made them more readily accessible for participants, and also paid off by helping students who were more experienced with software applications to quickly assist their peers.  Participants told us that they learned new ideas and planned to share the lab materials with others in their research teams.  More immediately, one faculty team that had little programming experience used materials from the workshop to produce a complete analysis of their data in one working day, with only minor guidance by me.  And several undergraduate participants shared creative (and quite practical) research ideas that they hoped to carry out using the modeling methods.

Completing our research planning meetings ahead of schedule left time to explore the delightful city of Pasto and surrounding region!  My thoughtful hosts arranged a Saturday boat trip on Laguna de La Cocha, with a lunch of seared lake trout, plantains with avocado, and fresh blackberry juice as our main destination.  We took in the Carnaval Museum, jogged in the mountain foothills, and sampled the smooth local coffee bean roast at neighborhood cafés.  As I met Colombian people, I was most struck by their optimism for the future of their country and youth, which seemed so different from the current social climate in the United States.

Faculty at both universities were enthusiastic to learn about Purdue University’s research exchange programs for students and faculty to/from Colombia.  As my hosts and I expand our collaboration beyond their oral health project, I am confident that it will be fruitful for research work because we are building a relationship of trust and support, as well as exchanging intellectual ideas.