Impacts of Undergraduate Research for Fully Online STEM Students

该项目旨在通过调查课程创新来吸引在线STEM学生参与本科研究，从而为国家利益服务。虽然传统的本科研究的好处得到了充分的研究，但在全球分布式的完全在线学习环境中，为支持本科研究提供框架的工作很少。该项目将创建一个本科STEM研究辅修课程，以解决参与基于课程的本科研究经历的一些行政和学生障碍，并为所有学生提供研讨会、导师培训和分散的教师小组来支持学生。该项目的目标是扩大本科研究的实施，提高学生的观点，并促进STEM职业道路。这个为期3年的项目的目标是开发和管理一个完全在线学习环境中的研究学者计划。该计划预计将增加在安柏瑞德航空大学完成STEM学位的学生的本科研究参与，并产生有影响力的学生研究成果，包括学生论文和会议报告的作者身份。参与研究辅修课程和研究经历有望对学生的STEM态度产生积极影响，并支持他们选择和追求STEM职业道路。研究数据包括机构数据和对学生和其他利益相关者的定性访谈，以最好地确定开发的课程和讲习班的有效性，以及它们对学生和机构的影响。NSF IUSE: EDU项目支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by investigating curricular innovations to engage online STEM students in undergraduate research. While the benefits of traditional undergraduate research are well-studied, little work has been done in providing a framework for supporting undergraduate research in a globally distributed wholly online learning environment. This project will create an undergraduate STEM research minor to address some of the administrative and student barriers to engaging in a course-based undergraduate research experience, and support the minor with workshops available to all students, mentor training, and a diffuse group of faculty to support students. The project’s goals are to broaden the implementation of undergraduate research, improve student perspectives, and promote STEM career pathways. The discrete objectives of this 3-year project are to develop and administer a Research Scholars Program in a wholly online learning environment. The program is anticipated to increase undergraduate research participation for students completing STEM degrees exclusively online at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and lead to impactful student research outputs, including student authorship of papers and conference presentations. Engaging in the research minor and the research experiences is expected to positively influence students' STEM attitudes and support them in choosing and pursuing STEM career pathways. Research data include institutional data and qualitative interviews with students and other stakeholders to best determine the efficacy of the developed courses and workshops as well as their impact on students and the institution. The NSF IUSE: EDU 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.