REU Site: Interdisciplinary Research in Undergraduate STEM Education

北达科他州州立大学将开展一项暑期研究项目，邀请30名本科生参与STEM教育的跨学科合作研究。该项目将通过教师和同行指导以及队列建设活动来促进合作。REU学员将学习定性和定量研究方法、科学沟通技能，并熟悉STEM教育的职业道路。该项目的最终目标是促进有才华的学生进入研究生课程，即以学科为基础的教育研究(DBER)。该项目建立在先前的NSF奖项的基础上，该奖项在DBER领域产生了可公布的结果。通过这个项目，REU的学生将能够从各种各样的本科研究项目中进行选择，这些项目提出了关于评估、推理和学习助理的影响的重要问题，跨越了许多STEM学科。学生在到达REU网站之前，将通过阅读和讨论指定的论文并参加IRB培训(两者都在网上完成)来为他们的研究经验做准备。在此之前，虚拟指导的好处将是双重的；学生将接受教育研究方面的基本培训，这是一个他们可能不熟悉的领域，他们将开始与研究导师建立关系。在项目期间，学生将参加一个结构良好的职业发展研讨会，通过研讨会，他们将讨论道德实践，STEM的职业生涯，以及进入研究生院的途径。形成性评估每年将通过从入学和毕业调查、本科生研究经验调查、实验设计能力测试和对学生的访谈中收集的信息，提供完善项目所需的反馈。终结性评估活动将包括REU学生离职面谈、离职调查，以及通过后续调查跟踪学生的职业发展轨迹。

North Dakota State University will conduct a summer research program to engage 30 undergraduate students in collaborative, interdisciplinary research in STEM Education. This project will foster collaboration through faculty and peer mentoring and cohort building activities. REU participants will learn qualitative and quantitative research methods, scientific communication skills, and become familiar with career paths in STEM Education. The ultimate goal of this project is to promote the matriculation of talented students to graduate programs in what is referred to as discipline-based education research (DBER). This project builds on a prior NSF award that has produced publishable results in the area of DBER. Through this project REU students will be able to select from a wide variety of undergraduate research projects that pose important questions about the nature of assessment, reasoning, and the impact of learning assistants, crossing many STEM disciplines. The students will prepare for their research experience by reading and discussing assigned papers and participating in IRB training (both done online) before they arrive at the REU site. The benefit of this prior, virtual mentoring will be twofold; the students will receive essential training in education research, an area that may not be familiar to them and they will begin to build relationships with their research mentors. During the project the students will participate in a well-structured professional development seminar through which they will address ethical practices, careers in STEM, and pathways to graduate school. Formative evaluation will provide feedback necessary to refine the project each year through information gathered from entrance and exit surveys, the Survey of Undergraduate Research Experiences, the Experimental Design Ability Test, and interviews with students. Summative evaluation activities will include REU student exit interviews, an exit survey, and tracking of students' career trajectories through follow-up surveys.