Howe, L., & Holles, J. (2022, August), An Undergraduate Research Methods Class: Results and Experiences from Initial Offerings  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41321

\bibitem{asee_peer_41321}
  Howe, L., \& Holles, J. (2022, August), \emph{An Undergraduate Research Methods Class: Results and Experiences from Initial Offerings}
  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN.
  10.18260/1-2--41321

Lori Howe and Joseph Holles.  "An Undergraduate Research Methods Class: Results and Experiences from Initial Offerings".  2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August.  ASEE Conferences, 2022.  https://peer.asee.org/41321 Internet.  21 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_41321}
  Lori Howe and Joseph Holles.
  "An Undergraduate Research Methods Class: Results and Experiences from Initial Offerings".
  \emph{2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2022.
  https://peer.asee.org/41321 Internet.  21 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_41321
author = "Lori Howe and Joseph Holles"
title = "An Undergraduate Research Methods Class: Results and Experiences from Initial Offerings"
booktitle = "2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2022"
month = "August"
address = "Minneapolis, MN"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/41321}
number = {10.18260/1-2--41321}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Our institution has focused on expanding the Honor’s College experience in an effort to improve university recruiting and retention.  Within the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the goal is to focus the Honors experience on undergraduate research with an aim of broadening research opportunities and competitiveness of student applications for summer research programs, NSF REUs, internal/external research funding applications, participation in undergraduate research conferences, and preparing the students for graduate school.  Historically, many students (inside and outside of the honors program) have received credit for completing undergraduate research, but this is often a “stand-alone” course with no additional preparation and ill-defined outcomes.  While this approach may provide a laboratory experience, the research experience is greatly dependent on the mentoring provided informally by the research laboratory and the research advisor.  In addition, the Honors College would like to increase the number of students completing their Honors Capstone (senior thesis). To respond to these goals, an “Introduction to STEM Research” course was developed and taught.  This course was broadly designed to group mentor the students into the research process, prepare them for the subsequent in-laboratory research experience, and scaffold them towards completion of the Honors program. This course is broadly focused to provide a general approach to research and graduate school preparation appropriate for all majors in the Engineering College and other programs in hard science.

The Research Methods course has now been taught twice: Spring 2020 and Fall 2021 (in progress).  While offered through the Honors College/Engineering Honors, the course was open to all interested students.  For the initial two offerings, there have been a total of nine students (six engineering and three others).  Course topics included: finding a research mentor, literature search skills, using the scientific method for approaching a research problem, developing a research methodology, writing a funding proposal, delivering a research presentation, and selecting and applying for graduate school.  Results, experiences, observations and student feedback from these initial offerings will be presented.  Most desired outcomes for the course were met.  All students found one (or more) research advisors and initiated their research.  The students completed the required university safety training.  Several students submitted successful applications for funding or undergraduate research programs.  Assessments and student outcome tracking for the course will be discussed.  For example, student self-reported level of experience was compared for 12 different course topic areas before and after the course.  For the initial offering, the average response increased by 2.2 and there were no “don’t know” answers post-course.  The CURE tool for examining classroom aspects of undergraduate research was also used as a tool to benchmark this course against similar approaches to exposing undergraduates to research.

AU  - Lori Howe
AU  - Joseph Holles
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - An Undergraduate Research Methods Class: Results and Experiences from Initial Offerings
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41321
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41321
ER  -