Students Gaining Positive Perspectives About Research!

Submitted by Cheri Hebert on
Duration
-
Abstract

A learning objective for Com 230HC is for students “identify, read, synthesize, and discuss information from a current scholarly, peer reviewed journal article.” Three topics being in Communication, and one topic of choice, in their area of interest. Being an honors cohort, I expand on this objective by having students learn how to find, read,  discuss, and present their 4th article as part of a creative panel presentation.  They then are paired with other students who have similar interests in the class to create similiar interest panels.  I have implemented this project throughout the semester through 4 step incremental module assignments called “Honor’s Topic Research Discussions” with the ultimate learning outcome of having students find, understand and present scholarly research in their area of interest. By measuring attitudes using a 15 question pretest posttest survey, about undergraduate research,  their overall interest in undergraduate research increased an average of 3.28 percent. The highest increase question 14 at 4.66 percent. The lowest increase question 8 at .04 percent.

Completed Full Cycle
Yes
Course Number
Com 230 HC
Assessment of the Month

Comments

Cheri Hebert Mon, 12/11/2017 - 2:19pm

Please see the questions I used the results and the assignment attached.  The Panel discussions are really my favorite moment of seeing students with similiar interests present creative panel presentations about research in their area of interest, which in turn seems to generate further interest.

Olga Tsoudis Fri, 01/19/2018 - 10:44pm

Cheri, This is an excellent assessment: 1. you incorporate pre and post measures. 2. you focus on students' learning and understanding about research and 3. you prepare them for future projects at the university level. Thank you for sharing.

Catherine Cochran Mon, 01/22/2018 - 11:48am

Hi Cheryl,

This is interesting data.  Thank you for sharing!

Catherine 

Becky Baranowski Tue, 01/23/2018 - 12:29pm

Cheri, 

First off, I am thrilled to see you use a pre-post test.  You are checking to see if your class activities are making an impact upon student learning.  Teri and I are really trying to get more faculty to utilize pre-post tests to see how they impact student perceptions and learing.  So, thank you for doing this.  This pre-post test has given me some idea for my own classroom.  

2nd:  I specifically love the results for question 8, "I hate statistics and don't do research."  This has a huge positive increase in how students felt about stats.  Thank you for taking time to change student attitudes on this.  

Also, thank you for taking time to share this CATS with us. 

Dori Navarette-Lynch Wed, 01/31/2018 - 2:07pm

Thank you for sharing the pre/post aspect. I have been wanting to incorporate a pre test for many of my assessments and this has inspired me!

Dori