Education Commons^™

Youtube Video Essays As Critical Remixed Scholarship, Michelle L. Arendt

Student Research Symposium

YouTube videos have contributed primary and supplementary instructional materials to traditional classrooms since the 2010s (Sylvia & Moody, 2022). These internet-native materials are more successful than their traditional counterparts due to their recontextualization which melds dissemination with the semiotic landscape of web 2.0 culture.

Preferential treatment towards long-form, research-based content has facilitated the development of the YouTube video essay format: a grassroots practice that unapologetically embeds identity, pop culture, and humor with rigorous scholarly praxis and remediation of major elements of academic discourse (Davis, 2022). Videos of this type regularly reach “audiences which may rival or dwarf the enrollment of …

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status, Child Separation Anxiety Symptoms, And School Achievement In 1st Grade, Filip-Bogdan Serban-Dragan

Student Research Symposium

This informative poster highlights a study examining the association between child separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and school achievement, considering socioeconomic status (SES) and perceived financial stress. Data came from the Early Growth and Development Study (EGDS). Data from the kindergarten (age 6) and 1^st grade (age 7) assessments in the adoptive families (N=360 adoptive triads) were analyzed.

By controlling for parent’s income, financial stress, child’s gender and by measuring children at two time points (6 and 7 years), our study aims to identify the specific contribution of separation anxiety on academic achievement, enhancing our understanding of this …

Exploring Factors That Contribute To Stem Transfer Student Sense Of Belonging, Brittney R. Gallant, Cate Pocitari

Student Research Symposium

There is an ongoing disconnect between the number of students who enter college intending to earn a STEM degree and the number of students who persist to degree, this is particularly true for transfer students. Sense of belonging has been named as a STEM persistence factor, yet how that belonging develops for transfer students is largely unknown. Here we used a mixed-methods design to explore the experiences of STEM transfer students at PSU (n=38). Participants completed a survey prior to participating in an interview. The survey and interviews explored their science identity, sense of belonging, and involvement in STEM-related activities. …

Interpersonal Experiential Learning And Cancer Research Training Designed To Enhance The Motivation Of Participating Interns Utilizing Self-Determination Theory: A Longitudinal Study With Photovoice Methodology, Alex Vazquez-Cortes, Dierdre Mckay, Connie Tran, Bridget Bugla, Tiffany Bui, Kaisa Holt, Anthony Phan, Clare Hansen, Amy Lin, Amanda Braley, Lisa Marriott Phd

Student Research Symposium

Historically, the underrepresentation of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, disabled, and diverse racial/ethnic groups in STEM fields is prevalent. Equity in stem fields allows for different perspectives and knowledge backgrounds allows for the cognitive diversity needed to tackle complex research topics. The Knight Scholars Program (KSP) aims to support underrepresented and disadvantaged high school and undergraduate students pursuing a research career by teaching them the tools they need to succeed. Spanning over three summers, KSP utilized the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of motivation to create an inclusive learning environment and to strengthen the high schoolers' motivation to pursue research careers focusing on …

Promoting Student Engagement In Research In An Undergraduate Language-Development Course, Mitchell Kloer, Isabelle Trujillo, Teresa Roberts, Carolyn Quam

Student Research Symposium

This presentation will provide student perspectives on benefits of incorporating inclusive research activities within an undergraduate Speech and Hearing Sciences course. In Speech and Language Development in Children (SPHR 372U), instructor Quam incorporates a research project focusing on an issue of equity, inclusion, and social justice. One overarching goal is to reduce barriers of access to scientific research and increase engagement for college students, particularly those from historically underrepresented groups. The project is segmented into 3 steps that mirror literature review, critical analysis, and proposal. The project is collaborative, iterative throughout the term, and each step in the research process …

Stem Students And Faculty See Value In A Classroom Belonging Exercise, Kaisa S. Holt, Elizabeth A. Runkel-Baez

Student Research Symposium

Enhancing belonging in undergraduate STEM classrooms are pivotal for student success. This study examines a belonging exercise's implementation and impact in multiple STEM courses from 2017 to 2019. Faculty perspectives were gathered from a survey of 92 respondents, indicating a high level of perceived benefit (92%). Coded responses highlighted shared experiences and diversity mindset promotion. 30% explicitly mentioned benefits for both students and instructors. Additionally, 76% of faculty saw potential of belonging exercises in their own classrooms. It is important to promote using belonging interventions and also understand how STEM students perceive their value and utility. Three focus groups with …

Expressive And Instrumental Social Capital Facilitates Network Connections For Community College Transfer Students In Stem, Makenna R. Stone

Student Research Symposium

Students that transfer from a community college (CC) to a university often experience social and academic barriers that can lead to feelings of isolation and challenge their persistence. One way to alleviate these barriers is to develop capital. We aimed to understand how a cohort of CC STEM transfer students may have developed and exhibited social capital, or “assets accessed through social connections”. We leveraged the Network Theory of Social Capital to examine the instrumental (i.e., concrete advice and support) and expressive (i.e., emotional support and encouragement) actions that led to feelings of connection and persistence. We conducted semi-structured interviews …

Community Resilience In Portland Parkland Soils, Jason W. Triefenbach

Student Research Symposium

Proposing soil nutrient testing as a model for community research and ecology education, this presentation considers pathways to raising public engagement with sustainability issues while enhancing community resilience and social capital. "Community Resilience in Portland Parkland Soils" represents my research thus far on the conjoined topics of urban soils and community efficacy, in which I have attempted to synthesize biogeophysical processes in city parklands with strategies for raising public awareness about urban ecosystems.

I measured and compared soil nitrogen levels at 8 iconic Portland area parks using commercially- available garden test kits, while concurrently researching the historical and contemporary land …

Community-Linked Field Experience Pilot, Mia Palombo

Student Research Symposium

This IRB-approved study explores the possibilities of a teacher education program engaged with and rooted in the community. The project follows a partnership between a university and a community organization whose mission is to meet the needs of k-12 multilingual students. Pre-service teachers complete their field experience in an innovative community-based setting, and receive mentoring from a teacher on staff focused on developing skills and understanding how learning is nurtured outside traditional classroom settings. This partnership serves a dual purpose, meeting the needs of the community organization and those of pre-service interns who have demands on their time, which make …

Key Issues Of Identity In The Lives Of Adult Survivors Of Japanese Internment Camps: Exploring Utah's Own Internment Camp Through The Usu Digital Archives', Lori Qian

Student Research Symposium

Under the direction of Professor Sherry Marx, Professor of Cultural Studies and Education, doctoral students explored the USU digital archives and were assigned the task of choosing one of the sets and conducting qualitative research. I examined the experiences and perspectives of a group of Japanese Americans, who were adult survivors of Topaz, Utah's internment camp following WWII. As I studied the history of the event and the recollections of survivors, who had been very young children when they arrived at Topaz, the notion of Identity stood out most. With the lens of identity, I looked at their experiences and …

Arriving In A Strange Place: Japanese Americans Write About Incarcerated Life At Topaz, Polly Parkinson

Student Research Symposium

The United States government’s own website refers to internment camps such as Topaz as one of the country’s worst violations of the civil rights of citizens. People of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast, U.S. citizens or not, were incarcerated during World War II in 14 camps built in remote locations. This study explores what digital archive materials from Topaz reveal about this place through the words of the people who lived there. The study uses grounded theory methods to observe relationships, patterns, and trends in the data. General categories of analysis include physical attributes and purposes, cultural characteristics …

Speech Intelligibility Assessment: Predicting "Noncompliant" Listener Behavior, Briggs Kroff

Student Research Symposium

Purpose: When researching speech intelligibility among people with dysarthria, convenience sampling has typically been used to recruit listeners. A new alternative online crowdsourcing method, Mechanical Turk (MTurk), results in ecologically valid results, but outlier results are often removed from the analysis and considered 'noncompliant'. This study aims to examine whether or not there is a relationship between age, gender, speech/language/hearing impairment, and whether someone is 'noncompliant'.Methods: Sixteen speakers, both with and without dysarthria, were recorded while they read prewritten sentences. Research participants found through MTurk then listened to the sentences and transcribed them. They also were asked questions including their …

Cultivating Fluent And Meaningful Writing Through Empathy-Centered Texts In The Third Grade Classroom, Lori Qian

Student Research Symposium

In this qualitative case study, my professor and I examined how my class of third-grade students endeavored to construct meaning around empathy as they cultivated their fluency-centered writing skills. Through the use of empathy-based, culturally-responsive reading lessons, and knowing that reading and writing are intricately connected, the researchers draw upon specific book choices and a well-crafted discussion structure to encourage meaningful, fluent writing. By designing and instituting a simple yet purposeful reading response template, as well as implementing certain classroom practices, the researchers are able to observe the degree to which the text, associated discussion, and classroom practices have an …

Promoting Education In Africa, Jack Colemere

Student Research Symposium

Education in Africa has been a challenge for many years. But why? What can be done to transform it into something better? Through understanding Africa's history behind their education systems and by designing spaces to help promote better learning we can begin to reverse the impacts of the past and give good education and equal opportunities to all.

Challenges In Integrating Computer Science Into K-12 Education And How We Approach It, Mengying Jiang

Student Research Symposium

A promising approach to make sure all students have opportunities to learn about computing is to integrate computer science (CS) into existing disciplines such as math and science. This project aims to integrate CS into Montana schools while also offering content that aligns with the Indian Education for All Act (IEFA). We are developing elementary and middle school units and teacher training materials that integrate CS, Indian Education, and other K-12 standards in Science, Language Arts, and Visual Arts. Our approach to curriculum design is through Research-Practice Partnership and a three-level strategy framework that supports students’ CS and disciplinary learning.

Curricular Adaptations By Paraprofessionals During Their Computer Lab Instruction Using Block-Based Coding, Prasina Parameswaran

Student Research Symposium

Classroom adaptation is one of the key elements in filling the gap between understanding and application of knowledge in the real world. Our work emphasizes upon the classroom adaptations in the Math classroom. We are studying 5th grade students and computer science (CS) paraprofessionals in the Western United States. Paraprofessionals are provided professional development (PD) to familiarize them with CS and Scratch. Scratch is a block based coding program which uses visual interface and is used for making animations, games, digital stories etc. As paraprofessionals are not certified teachers, this PD works towards helping them understand the Math content and …

A Systematic Review Of Group Contingencies In Alternative Education Settings, Milad Najafichaghabouri

Student Research Symposium

Previous reviews show that group contingencies (GC) are an effective intervention for improving student outcomes in school settings. However, those reviews do not specifically examine the effects of GCs in alternative education settings. Given that these settings typically support individuals who are displaying severe challenging behaviors or are diagnosed with specific behavior disorders, synthesizing the evidence for GCs will be a useful contribution to the literature on how effective these procedures are in reducing problematic student behavior. In addition, this review will assess how relevant stakeholders in these settings rate the social validity of GCs. The quality of the studies …

Understanding Cultural Competence Training With Trauma-Informed Clinicians, Emily Slater, Brayden Gulso

Student Research Symposium

Our USU research team partnered with the Intensive Outpatient Clinic (IOC) at the U of U. The IOC is a multi-disciplinary clinic serving diverse, and vulnerable patients. The IOC identified a need for ongoing cultural training in their organization, and the medical field more broadly. We worked with the IOC to co-develop a cultural competence training with both online and in-person components. Currently, the IOC has completed the training course, and our research is in the data collection phase. We will shared the story of our partnership work, research design, anticipated findings, and next steps. Acknowledgement: This research is supported …

The Effect That Parents Expectations Have On Their Students, Molli Esplin

Student Research Symposium

Parents in this modern world have been causing their children more stress and in turn their mental health has been suffering. I wanted to see what can be done to help young adults and parents through this challenge. What I discovered was that a big cause of the increased stress was the parents' high expectations that they put on their kids. I used the library and internet databases to complete my research. I was able to use primary and secondary sources. In these sources I tried to be diverse in my source selections. This helped as I looked for different …

Care, Wellness, And Mindful Movement: Supporting The Needs Of Educators And Students During Challenging Times, Ashlyn Birchell

Student Research Symposium

Studies have shown that teachers who implement social emotional learning (SEL) and wellness practices have improved attitudes, show more engagement with students, families and colleagues, and demonstrate increased educational efficacy. The challenge teachers often face is that they are required to do so much that their own wellness practices may take a back seat. Additionally, since the start of the global pandemic, teachers and students have had to learn to repeatedly shift on the fly for health and safety reasons. This draws even more attention to the importance of promoting self-care as a form of community care. Previous literature reveals …

Broken Film Narratives: The Invisibility Of Latinx Women In Education Through Film And Literature, Virginia Hernández, Lisset Delgado

Student Research Symposium

Our research aims to explore the lack of Latinx women being portrayed in films with education as the central theme. Although there are Latinx women in films today, they are not portrayed in an entirely positive light. They are commonly represented in an oversexualized manner compared to latinx men who are portrayed as hard workers and commonly seeking education. A good example would be the film McFarland USA by Niki Caro in which young male adolescents are a part of a cross country team. Although the film does a great job of portraying their lives as latinx adolescents living in …

The 6 Levels Of Gamification: Introducing A New Organization Structure To Game-Based Learning, Treion Muller

Student Research Symposium

Gamification has become a popular buzzword and learning strategy in educational settings from K-12 to Higher Education, and to business learning and development (L & D) teams. Since the term 'gamification' was first coined there has been a significant increase of research on the topic as it relates to training and education, as well as a rapid rise of many new commercially sold gamification and learning technologies, tools, and platforms. However, what's lacking is a formal definition, theoretical approach, and taxonomy. The purpose of this study is to identify and organize the core gamification taxonomies, theoretical frameworks, and design elements …

Normative Interventions: Are They Ethical When Helping Individuals With Autism?, Annie Bramson

Student Research Symposium

When helping individuals with autism, both in school and in their later adult lives depending on when one receives their diagnosis, normative interventions have been the main treatment alongside therapy. Normative interventions look at behaviors an individual may express that others deem as inappropriate, disruptive, or even just autistic. Targeting said behavior, interactions are held to train the behavior out of the individual through various methods, including video modeling, self-management, and social stories. While these methods have seemed to be helpful with eradicating target behaviors, it does so without looking at the reason behind said behavior, as well as at …

Implementation Of Humanized Elements In Online Courses And User Testing Feedback, Roxie Christensen

Student Research Symposium

Online courses in higher education often lack key elements that invite students into a course. The absence of these elements may make the course lack social presence and connectedness. Students can experience a sense of aloneness the course which can cause disengagement and loss of motivation. However, the implementation of humanized elements in a course can facilitate engagement and motivation. This study facilitated the implementation of humanized elements in order to make online courses more inclusive for minoritized students by focusing on social presence and connectedness. During the pilot course, humanized elements were implemented and user testing was conducted at …

Investigating Student Learning About Disease Spread And Prevention In The Context Of Agent-Based Computational Modeling, Siyu Wu

Student Research Symposium

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a need to help students learn about public health issues, including the transmission of disease and methods for the prevention of epidemics. This study presents data from a project aimed at developing a computational modeling microworld to help middle school students learn about the spread of disease. The microworld is meant to help students model and test their ideas about how a disease spreads through a population and how an epidemic can be prevented. I employed a lab-based case study approach to conduct one-on-one 1.5-hour interviews through Zoom with four middle school students (ages 12-14). …

Esports Course Design: Balancing Multiplayer Gameplay Within Structured Curriculum, Daelynn Hunter

Student Research Symposium

There is a noticeably large interest growing across the globe for Esports expansion. Esports has grown to become an affinity space for competitive ambition/growth and a discipline of enormously varied learning techniques. Techniques to build esports into education often follow a 3 credit format, where esports can be studied in various areas (e.g., business, psychology, media/production). However, there’s been an absence in courses that are focused solely in gameplay. Traditionally, gaming has been observed to be a distraction over opportunity for growth. The course is currently centered to target said assumptions by utilizing student discipline techniques. Assignments are centered around …

Applying Cognitive Load Theory To Video Materials To Increase Metacognition And Improve Academic Performance Of Structured Query Language Course, Kyle Lam

Student Research Symposium

Structured Query Language (SQL) is a standardized programming language used to manage relational databases and perform various operations on the data in them.This course was highly technical for the undergraduate students, to make the learning more effective, the teacher must assess the intrinsic cognitive load on the learner and adjust the extraneous cognitive load when creating video materials.This study applied cognitive load theory (CLT) to remove split attention and redundancy effects; offer suitable worked examples and segmentation to decrease the cognitive load demand of learners.This study tries to address the relationship between cognitive load level and metacognition, and clarify how …

Divorce: Another Barrier To Marginality, Shelby Green

Student Research Symposium

Divorce is an ever growing social problem that affects individuals from all corners of the world. People from all walks of life experience the effects of divorce, but marginalized groups that already have reduced access to social and legal resources and accurate representation are especially affected by divorce. The research at hand aims to determine exactly how marginalized groups, specifically children, LGBTQ, and ethnic minorities experience the effects of divorce in comparison to non marginalized groups. Research was conducted through the use of university sponsored data bases and analysis of primary and secondary sources. Peer reviewed scholarly articles and first …

Depression, Event Load, And Personal Vulnerability In Mothers Of Young Children, Matthew Cook, Kamilah Mauldin, Makenzy Turner

Student Research Symposium

Social support has been shown as a protective factor for parental mental health and for parents’ ability to deal with daily stressful events. Parenting stress and mental health can negatively impact child outcomes. The current study examines the role of social support in mental health, stressful events, and family interactions of mothers who are students at USU. Data from 38 student-parent mothers were collected as part of the Childcare Access Means Parents in School grant. Mothers completed various surveys and questionnaires via Qualtrics that were related to social support, mental health, stressful events, and family interactions. Results indicate negative associations …

Make Your (Punctuation) Mark!, Bethany Nay

Student Research Symposium

Punctuation marks are a part of our daily lives, and yet, we rarely take time to think about them. This presentation serves to counter that, diving deep into the histories and origins of various punctuation marks. Each student in Honors 1320 chose a punctuation mark to individually research, learning more about why we use the marks that we do. We hope that through this research, people can gain a deeper appreciation for punctuation marks and their histories. Students and additional presenters from Honors 1320: Annie Bramson, Audrey Douglas, Micaela Garcia, Erin Hamilton, Lucy Hankins, Gillian Jarrard, Eli Moss, Cynthia Narkin, …