Undergraduate Research Training Through Replication Team Science with the Collaborative Replications and Education Project

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project aims to serve the national interest by implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of an enhanced Collaborative Replications and Education Project (CREP) model for undergraduate student research. The current version of CREP supports students with undergraduate research training through replicating published experiments. In this model, CREP selects recent psychological studies that could be replicated independently by students, and then organizes and helps instructors who want to supervise these projects as part of their courses. This project expands on the current CREP model by engaging selected students from across the United States in twice-monthly cohort meetings where they can present their work, as well as have opportunity to serve as peer mentors for future cohorts of students. Another goal of the project is to evaluate CREP as a tool for improving research skills, research literacy, critical thinking about psychology, and to provide a range of students with research experience. This project could impact psychology and other STEM disciplines by providing instructors with a model for involving students in authentic research within the context of their coursework. This project aims to evaluate the pedagogical effectiveness of an enhanced CREP model for undergraduate student research projects. The standard CREP project, outlined in Wagge and colleagues (2019), supports students and their instructors in the completion of direct replication projects as part of the undergraduate curriculum. In this project, the CREP team selects studies for students to choose from, and student teams complete replications of these studies at different institutions around the world. They interface with the CREP team when the projects are reviewed by CREP both before and after data collection, and potentially again in the future when a pooled or meta-analysis is written based on data collected from all teams. The project expands on the CREP model by adding -- for selected students in the United States -- twice-monthly cohort meetings with other teams under the supervision of a Graduate Assistant, CREP Executive Director, and/or peer mentors who completed projects the previous year. Participants will be recruited for the study through their instructors, who will be recruited from Listservs and social media to sign up to be randomly assigned to either a CREP or standard (non-CREP) research project class. Instructors will give students information about how to sign up to participate in the study. Pretests and posttests will be conducted online through Avila's system using survey software. The NSF IUSE:EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.