Educational Methods Commons^™

Assessing Evolutionary Reasoning Of Introductory Biology Students, Sarah Spier

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

Question: Does proficiency in natural selection knowledge predict the quality of student reasoning of reproductive potential as a component of fitness?

Hypothesis: Students with higher scores on the Concept Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS) will have more accurate descriptions of reproductive potential as a part of fitness.

Goals: Assess student ability to reason about fitness and selection in a variety of contexts. Assess student reasoning of evolutionary implications of an ecological scenario

Social And Behavioral Science Research Support At Unl, Mindy Anderson-Knott

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

Mindy Anderson-Knott provides an overview of the various research support offerings at UNL related to the social and behavior sciences. The presentation will explain how the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium can help researchers with their social and behavior science needs, and will navigate participants through many of the support structures that exist on campus.

Knowing What Students Know: How Question Formats Differ In Their Abilities To Reveal Student Thinking, Brian Couch

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

Instructors use assessment ubiquitously throughout undergraduate STEM courses to gauge student understanding of important concepts. The utility of an assessment can be partly judged by the degree to which it can detect the presence of correct and incorrect understandings. We will discuss a series of within-subjects controlled experiments to determine how student responses differ for questions posed in multiple-choice, multiple-true-false, or free-response formats as well as implications of this research for instructional practice.

A Case Study Of The Variables For Women’S Success In Engineering And Computing, Arefeh Mohammadi

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

There is a huge shortage of skilled workforce in the engineering and computing related industries. According to the BLS data women have consistently constituted less than 10% of the workforce in the construction industry, which exemplifies the under representation of women in this field. This qualitative research aims at helping women sustain in engineering workforce, empower them in the choices they make to enter and success in the industry, and look at ways to create a safe and encouraging environment for women to survive and thrive in the workforce. This is believed to be possible through creating platform to educate …

“Thank God I’M Mexican”: Cognitive Racial Reappraisal Strategies Of Latino Engineering Students, Elvira Abrica

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

Despite the fact that Latinos pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees as often as their peers, Latino degree completion rates lag behind those of other demographic groups. In an effort to better understand Latino persistence in STEM, this qualitative study explored the non-cognitive persistence strategies of Latino men pursuing engineering degrees at two highly selective, four-year institutions. Specifically, this study explored Latino engineering students’ understanding and responses to race and racism, with attention to ways in which understanding and responses differed by immigrant generation. A total of 37 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed. Findings indicate that immigrant …

The Potential Scientist’S Dilemma: How The Masculine Framing Of Science Shapes Friendships And Science Job Aspirations, G. Robin Gauthier, Julia Mcquillan, Patricia Wonch Hill, Amy Spiegel, Judy Diamond

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

In the United States, girls and boys have similar science achievement, yet fewer girls aspire to science careers than boys. This paradox emerges in middle school, when peers begin to play a stronger role in shaping adolescent identities. We use complete network data on a single middle school and theories of gender, identity, and social distance to explore how friendship patterns might influence this gender and science paradox. Three patterns highlight the social dimensions of gendered science persistence: 1) Boys and girls do not differ in self-perceived science potential and science career aspirations; 2) Consistent with gender-based norms, both middle …

Early Childhood Teachers’ Pedagogical Reasoning About How Children Learn During Language And Literacy Instruction, Rachel E. Schachter

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

The knowledge that teachers hold about children’s learning is important to teachers’ practice. Few studies have examined how early childhood teachers use such knowledge during moment-to-moment instruction for language and literacy learning. This study employed a phenomenological approach to understand the knowledge that eight early childhood teachers used to inform their pedagogical reasoning during language and literacy activities. Stimulated recall interviews about practice were conducted with the prekindergarten teachers. Results indicated that the teachers used multiple sources of knowledge to inform their pedagogical reasoning that included: conceptions about how children learn; knowledge about specific children and the learning goals for …

Mini-Symposium: Best Practices For Reu Programs And Unl, Mark A. Griep

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

If you want to learn how to run an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) program (or to make your REU program run more smoothly), then this is your opportunity to ask questions. The presentation will begin with 5-min talks from five REU program coordinators. These coordinators run a wide range of programs and have experience ranging from 1 year to 12 years. They will mention things such as how many applicants their program receives, how they review those files, an outline of the non-research portion of their summer program, and what sorts of outcomes they collect so they can report …

Self-Regulated Learning In Engineering Labs, Presentacion Rivera

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

Students’ task interpretation is a critical first step in the process of self-regulated learning and a key determinant in students setting their learning goals and selecting strategies to approach assigned work. Laboratory activities improve students’ conceptual understanding because of the cognitive demand when students integrate laboratory activities and theory. The purpose of this study is to investigate how students’ interpretation of the task assigned during laboratory work may change during the task process, and how it is related to their conceptual understanding. One-hundred and forty-three students enrolled in the course of Electronics participated in this study. Instruments used to measure …

Computer Science Technology Education: An Incredible Explosion, Iwasan D. Kejawa

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

This paper explore what computers are, their usages and their functionalities. Computers can be used to learn or comprehend the understanding of all subjects, be it physics aerobics, swimming, biology, mathematics, agriculture, chemistry, business administration or commerce, just to name a few. In education, computers are used to project information to individuals in the classrooms or anywhere education is taking place, in churches, homes, schools, conference halls and so on. It is also used to convey the logic of a subject or behind a topic. Computers play an important role in educating our mind. With the usage of computers, we …

The Mechanics Of Scientific Belief, Michael Cook

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

In "Science: Conjectures and Refutations," Karl Popper establishes a criterion for the scientific character or status of a theory: its falsifiability. And in one move, he turns a host of common scientific postulates—like the Ideal Gas Law, the Law of Conservation of Mass, Newton's First Law, and the Theory of Evolution—into "metaphysical research programs" whose nature renders them impossible to disprove though observable experiment ("Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind"). According to Popper, the nature of such postulates transcend the physical world; making them just as unfalsifiable as a spiritual power, or a god. In this way, they concern …

Moving Foward With Family Centered-Care: One Step At A Time, Adrianne Nicole Dunbar

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Family-centered care is an evolving process between patients, families, and health care providers. The family centered care model emphasizes the strength families bring to the healing process. The research project was a quasi-experimental pre-and post-test study with a communication intervention phase. The study was conducted in a Surgical-Trauma Intensive Care Unit (STICU) in a university affiliated hospital in the Southeast with restricted visitation hours. The purpose of this IRB-approved study was to measure the nurses’ perceptions of communication involvement with family members before and after the intervention phase. Approximately 50% of eligible participants responded. The communication intervention phase consisted of …

Cage's Dungeon, Gage Bradley, Brett Hall, Sam Troncin

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Cage’s Dungeon specifically refers to the work of the influential composer, performer, writer, and philosopher, John Cage. More precisely, his later compositional style which emphasized the use of chance operations within a musical composition. Cage was highly influenced by eastern philosophy, Zen Buddhism in particular, and he was fascinated by the chance operations found in the ancient I Ching text. As a result, Cage wrote many works that were nothing more than a set of simple guidelines for the performer to follow, with the outcome of the process creating the piece. These indeterminate compositions are not so much about the …

Each And Every Minute, Jacob Boles

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

This film started as an assignment of creating a film using a piece of non-diegetic sound. Initially I had a completely different song, as well as a completely different story planned out for the video. However, on the day I had scheduled to start filming I came across ab interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson while doing an assignment for another class. I was so immediately drawn to his words that only a couple hours before shooting I decided to throw out my original plan and come up with a brand new concept using a few segments of the interview as my …

“Northern Spy”, Anne Livingston

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Crack the geode

with your teeth

to swallow honeyed skin

golden jewels spill down your chin

crisp like the firs

t lie you told your abuelita. You wish

it could no longer hurt

you ignore snow white’s

lore to keep the meat

down. does it taste

as delicious as you remember?

Non-Suicidal Self-Injury On Youtube: A Content And Comment Analysis, Nathan Lowry, Carol Ewert

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a prevalent public health issue that affects millions of teenagers and young adults each year. With the ever-increasing use of social media among youth, it is important to understand how NSSI is represented online. The goal of the current study was to update the research of Lewis and colleagues (2010) to examine how NSSI is represented on YouTube via a content analysis. We also examined whether certain types of NSSI related videos may encourage or trigger viewers to engage in NSSI themselves by coding comments posted in response to videos. For this study, we searched “self-harm” …

The Physics Behind Garage Door Springs, Tal Joseph

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Pushing a button to open your garage door before going to work seems trivial until the motor fails to lift the door. There are various explanations for a garage door malfunction, but this paper will focus on the most common of them all—a broken spring. Inspired by the fact that garage door technicians must match the right spring to the appropriate garage doors, this project produced a spring conversion calculator. This paper provides a preface and comprehensive explanation of the mechanisms of overhead garage doors. Initially, it introduces the garage door and its components, then provides a detailed explanation of …

"My Paintings Would Be No Different Than A Picture In A Biology Textbook", Andi Kur

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

I find that there are innate balances in life, universal dichotomies that permeate our understanding of the world. My paintings are about a duality such as this that exists between art and science. We are told from youth that these subjects are poles in constant strain, as miscible as oil in water. I spent thirteen years in school believing that I must choose between the two, that it is unnecessary to carry both with me. Drawn between a distinct love of each, I realized how vehemently I disagreed. Everything: every rock to every tree to every person is suspended between …

A Sliding Scale: Nuclear Proliferation Among States, Jessica Lui

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Why do states engage in nuclear proliferation? Nuclear proliferation is a major security issue affecting the international arena. Existing studies debate both the strength and direction of determinants of nuclear proliferation and the effect of domestic and international circumstances on proliferation. A clear understanding of why states choose to pursue nuclear arms is critical to promoting and maintaining international security. By analyzing what factors may make a state less prone to proliferation, the international community may incentivize disarmament. My research question considers membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as a potential correlate of nuclear proliferation. Are countries that …

Temporary Meddlers: Friars In Measure For Measure And Romeo And Juliet, Sarah Friedman

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Shakespeare wrote during a time of intense religious controversy, as Protestants, Catholics, and Puritans vied for spiritual authority in England. Although Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church in the 1530s, Shakespeare’s work seems to still have been heavily influenced by Roman Catholic traditions. Both Measure for Measure and Romeo and Juliet are set in Catholic places and Catholic friars manipulate the outcomes in both plays. The portrayal of these characters offers insight into how Shakespeare may have viewed Catholics, as he did not leave behind clear evidence of his own religious convictions. The friars in Measure for Measure and …

A Cultural, Economic, And Industrial Analysis Of The Republic Of Poland And Its Financial Services Industry, Jeremy Eberly

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Through its thousand-year existence, the state of Poland has been a continental anomaly. The very existence of the state was questioned, challenged, and influenced by foreign powers intent on empire. At the end of World War II, the then-communist Polish state remained tightly under the influence of the Soviet Union. After years of underlying dissatisfaction with the pitiful performance of a centrally planned economy, the Poles, through “Solidarity,” forced democratic reforms in the late 1980s and capitalism was formally embraced. Explaining why the Poles rejected communism, French anthropologist and renowned political scientist Emmanuel Todd suggests that the roots of the …

The Use Of Simpson’S Diversity Index To Develop A Diverse Community For The Enrichment Of Experiential Learning, Quinn Nguyen

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Diversity is a buzz-word in our society, and within an academic institution, it plays the role as a tacit of what an institution is able to offer its students to better themselves and contribute to more knowledgeable citizens. While many programs and institutions promise diversity, some of these entities lack the requisite of diversity through their broad, loose definition. In this study, the Simpson’s Diversity Index (SDI) is introduced as a possible quantitative method for eradicating the loose definition of diversity. With that, 103 institutions were randomly sampled from a list of 1500 institutions to create a normal distribution curve. …

Connexin-43 And Traumatic Brain Injury: A Potential Target For Therapeutic Intervention, Lauren R. Moore

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a widespread, degenerative affliction with no current therapeutic interventions. The long-­‐term degradation caused by TBI results from secondary injury cascades that are initiated by primary injury. An early and important step in the damage process is reactive astrogliosis in astrocytes. Astrocytes communicate through gap junctions, which are composed of two connexon hemichannels from the two communicating cells and these connexons themselves are composed of six connexin protein subunits. Connexin 43 (Cx43) is a particularly important connexin to gap junctional communication and could act either to preserve the astrocytes from oxidative stress, or to propagate the …

Secret-Keeper, Cassandra Zimmerman

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Playing with the neighbor’s boy Sam wasn’t always Eliza’s favorite pastime. Each Saturday they’d sit in front of his house, searching for caterpillars between the slick, green blades and dried husks of weeds. The sun watched them as intently as they did the grass, or perhaps it was looking for caterpillars too. The real fun, however, didn’t start until Sam brought out the toys: a combat jeep, as small and shiny as a beetle; a plastic shooter that was always slick with bubble soap; fistfuls of dinosaurs, some forever frozen in a hungry roar, others in a panicked stare; and, …

Confronting Internalized Transphobia My Own And Society's, Kaci Sullivan

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

This series emphatically insists on spectrums in a binary world. While I consciously know there isn’t anything wrong with being transgender—that there’s absolutely no shame in it, this knowledge hasn’t protected me from internalizing all the transphobic messages integrated into every aspect of our "progressive" society. Glittering glass slivers, they dig in deep, prepared to stay a lifetime. So I decided to sit with myself. Naked. In front of a mirror and canvas. I would paint my body until it became one grounded, plein-air-inspired stroke after another. Until I accepted that it’s a perfectly valid body. This journey isn’t mine …

Authors & Endmatter (Jnchc 18-1)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

About the Authors

About the NCHC Monograph Series

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In This Issue (Back cover)

Black Excellence: Fostering Intellectual Curiosity In Minority Honors Students At A Predominantly White Research Institution, Stephen C. Scott

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As a recent alumnus of the West Virginia University Honors College, I recognize my honors experience as a multi-faceted, intellectual journey that pushed me academically, professionally, and personally to become the lifelong learner that I am today. As the only Black honors student in my graduating class, I was aware of my tokenism, especially in my honors courses, in the honors college office, in the honors learning center (testWELL Learning Center), and in university and honors college committee meetings, but I never let it bother me much. My peers misperceived me as an “Oreo”; my physical appearance was Black, yet …

Applying Encoding And Retrieval Techniques To Chinese Rhyme Reading In Advanced Placement Chinese Instruction, Nan Wang

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Learning Chinese as a foreign language is increasingly prevalent in public school districts in the U.S. As ACTFL (2011) reported, an increasing number of enrollments of Advanced Placement Chinese courses indicate a growing demand for Chinese language courses in U.S. public school districts (ACTFL, 2011; ACTFL, 2017). AP foreign language exams indicate that students from the mainstream culture in the U.S. do not perform as well as racial minority test takers (Brown & Thompson, 2016). Therefore, implementing appropriate teaching strategies in a student-centered foreign language environment is a desperate need. This is a pragmatic instructional design proposal, which emphasizes the …

Project Based Learning: Assessing And Measuring Student Participation, Bethany A. Clark

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This paper includes a literature review exploring the major components of project-based learning (PBL) followed by an analysis of research conducted in a classroom utilizing project-based learning concepts. The literature review includes an in-depth look at terminology and elements to be included in PBL projects and how PBL differs from traditional classroom projects. It also discusses assessment techniques and the benefits on students of implementing PBL. The focus of the review is on the idea that with more student control over their own learning, the more motivated students will be to complete and succeed. With student influence and participation at …

Behind The Digital World: High School Education Evolved, Candy Diaz

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

This paper discusses the discrete advantages that technology gives to high school education across the nation. It is crucial to implement digital supplements into school districts for the sake of the future of younger generations. Over the years it has been proven to be cheaper for all levels of education to take the leap into the future, especially high schools. Not only this, but the main signal of change should be due to the familiarity of teenagers with technology. Since they have practically grown up with it then it is only reasonable to upgrade to a new education system.

With …