Undergraduate Research Projects Research Articles

Attitude, practice orientation, benefits and barriers towards health research and publications among medical practitioners in Abia State, Nigeria: A cross-sectional study.

Health research is an essential component of medical training, education, and practice and is fundamental in establishing the scientific basis of health care. Aim: The study was aimed at describing the attitude, practice, benefits, and barriers towards health research and publications in a cross-section of medical practitioners in Abia State, Nigeria. This was a cross-sectional descriptive study carried out on 210 medical practitioners in Abia State. Data collection was done using pretested, self-administered questionnaire that elicited information on attitude, practice, benefits, and barriers toward health research. Awareness of research misconduct, types of published research articles, and factors considered in selection of journals for publication of research were also studied. The age of the participants ranged from 26 to 77 years. There were 173 (82.4%) men. The overall attitude toward research was moderate (x = 5.02 ± 0.96). All the respondents (100%) were involved in undergraduate research projects while 72 (34.3%) had at least one journal publication with the most commonly published articles being descriptive studies. The commonest barriers to research were financial and time constraints while the greatest benefits of research were advancement of medical knowledge and keeping practitioners abreast with evidence-based medicine. The commonest research misconduct was plagiarism while the most common factor considered in selection of journals for publication was article publication charges. Middle age group and years of practice more than 10 years were significantly associated with publication of journal articles (P < 0.05). This study has shown that the study participants had moderate positive attitude toward research with all the participants previously involved in undergraduate research and only one third had at least one journal publications. The commonest barriers were financial and time constraints and greatest benefits of health research was advancement of medical knowledge and keeping practitioners abreast with evidence-based medicine. Choice of journal for publications is preeminently determined by article publication charges. The most common article published and research misconduct was descriptive studies and plagiarism, respectively.

Experimental Study of Thermoelectric Conversion Efficiency and Cold Side Thermal Management

Thermoelectric generator (TEG) while offering the advantage of operational reliability are constrained by limited efficiencies. This paper, which is from an undergraduate research project, focusses on the contribution of cold side thermal management of commercially available thermoelectric generators towards the thermal to electrical conversion efficiency for a range of hot side temperatures. Electric heating elements are used to vary the heat flux to the TEG while conventional active and passive methods employing air and water as a medium are used for dissipating heat from the cold side of TEGs. Both thermal and electrical performance parameters of the TEGs are recorded for various ambient conditions in an indoor facility corresponding to naturally occurring wind conditions. At the end, the utility and effectiveness of the cooling methods are quantified for the range of operating temperatures.

A Qualitative Course-Based Inquiry into the Concept of Love as a Central Component of Child and Youth Care Practice

Child and Youth Care (CYC) students have the right to be engaged in pedagogical practices that inspire and arouse their curiosity about their field of practice. Undergraduate course-based research in which students have an opportunity to conduct authentic research within a for-credit course is one such high-impact pedagogical practice with a growing body of evidence-based outcomes. This article presents an undergraduate course-based research project that examined child and youth care student‘s beliefs about displaying love as a component of their practice. Located in the constructivist/interpretive research paradigm, this course-based research project collected data through the use of an expressive arts-based data method followed by a semi-structured questionnaire. Four overarching themes were identified during the thematic analysis: (a) authentic caring involves expressions of love, (b) expressions of love are an essential component of growth and development, (c) loving care as an ethic of relational practice, and (d) but…professionalism stands in the way. The results of this course-based study suggest that expressing love as a component of relational-centred CYC practice is not fully understood by CYC students and that much more research is needed to explore this issue.

Fatal attraction: what is the role of visual cues in attracting prey to carnivorous plants?

Carnivorous plants are adapted to low nutrient soils and accordingly derive nutrients by trapping animals. Despite being stationary, carnivorous plants are active predators, attracting prey through a combination of visual and olfactory cues. Through course-based undergraduate research projects, we tested the importance of visual cues in the capture of wild type and visually impaired (w1118) Drosophila melanogaster by the carnivorous plants, Drosera capensis and Nepenthes ventricosa. These studies addressed two main questions: 1) Are visual cues important for prey capture by carnivorous plants? (2) Are there differences between the wild type (Ore R) and visually impaired w1118D. melanogaster in their behavioral response to visual cues? Student groups exposed fruit flies to carnivorous plants or artificial traps within 37 L aquariums for 8-10 hours and recorded captures. They discovered that visual cues (particularly within the UV spectrum) can have a significant effect in attracting prey to specific trap types. In addition, visual acuity and irradiance levels can impact capture rates by affecting perception of visual cues. These projects illustrate a unique method for testing hypotheses about the importance of visual cues within the capture process and highlight how course-based research projects can be used to tackle relevant scientific questions.

Interview

interview

Undergraduate Research Supervision: A Case Study of Supervisors&amp;#39; Perceptions at Yanbu University College

This exploratory case study examined supervisors&amp;#39; perceptions of supervision of undergraduate research projects, and whether the level of experience affects the quality of the supervision process. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews. Participants were three supervisors with varying levels of experience in the supervision process at Yanbu University College in Saudi Arabia. Obtained themes were used with the whole data-set. The data were rearranged according to the emerged common themes among the three participants. Findings revealed that the level of experience affected the supervision process in relation to the supervisors&amp;lsquo; perceptions. It also suggested that the level of expereince of the supervisors influnced the process of supervision and the feedback given to the undergraduate students. An implication of these findings is that providing novice supervisors with training and guidance should be considered. Departments should create a discussion platform between experienced and novice supervisors to ensure that the supervision expereince is well delivered to undergraduates during their research projects. The study recommends supervisors to revisit all phases of their practice.

Methods Can be Murder: A Metaphorical Framework for Teaching Research Design

This article offers two novel tools for teaching political science methodology and research design. The first is a comprehensive framework for helping students conceptualize a research project in political science. The second is a reformulation of the dominant conceptualization of process-tracing tests. Building on Collier’s use of Sherlock Holmes stories to teach process tracing tracing and Kollars and Rosen’s employment of murder mystery party games in research methods courses, both the comprehensive framework and the reconceptualization of process-tracing are framed around the metaphor of a murder investigation and trial, specifically on the model of the plot to an episode of Law and Order. By drawing on pulp depictions of criminal procedure, students conceptualize research projects as analogous to a murder investigation, from the discovery of a body all the way through securing a conviction at trial. This framework draws upon innovative practices of extended simulations and pedagogical scaffolding, with the goal of fostering a creative and collaborative environment for developing undergraduate research projects and gaining mastery over methodological concepts.

Undergraduate Research Projects As a Prelude to Graduate Research

An undergraduate research experience might take the form of a summer project, a co-op term, a volunteer internship, or a credit course, such as a senior research thesis project. Designing a research project to be undertaken by an undergraduate student can pay off in numerous ways. Such a project can benefit the undergraduate student by offering valuable research experience and an opportunity for personal development, of course, but there could be many possible benefits to the research supervisor and the research group as well. The project could provide a low-risk means of exploring a potential new avenue of research that, if found to be promising, could then be followed up by a graduate research undertaking, either by that same student or by another graduate, or by a funding proposal if the supervisor seeks to open a new area of research. It might also serve as a recruiting tool to stir interest in an undergraduate student who might then consider returning to the same lab for graduate studies; conversely, it affords the supervisor a preview of student performance that may inform the decision to take that student on for a graduate degree. As undergraduates tend to be hard-working and relatively inexpensive, an undergraduate project could be a cost-effective means of accelerating research progress. Moreover, designing the undergraduate project to involve mentorship from a graduate student can provide an extra dimension of professional training for the graduate student, as he/she learns to take on responsibility for the training and direction of the undergraduate. To achieve these benefits through an undergraduate research experience requires that the project be thoughtfully designed to suit: 1) the education, experience, and abilities of the undergraduate, 2) the facilities, equipment, and other resources available, as well as the project duration, 3) the feasibility of the work, and 4) the ability and availability of the mentor (whether that is a graduate student, PDF, or the professor). In this presentation I discuss my efforts to strategically employ undergraduate projects in my own research group.

Mentoring STEM Undergraduate Research Projects in a Large Community College

The values and benefits of introducing undergraduate research to the college curriculum are both recognized and advocated in the literature. Although the community college environment may not appear to be favorable for undergraduate research projects in STEM fields, a dynamic and visible group of students, who take their path extremely seriously, requested and enthusiastically participated in these projects. Since summer 2015, we have mentored and co-mentored more than 15 students who were participating in funded, year-long research assignments or 6-week project-based learning opportunities. This experience was equally invaluable for our students and for us. The Appendices contain sample topics for students' projects.

Launching Graduate Student Writing Groups: Developing A Context-Specific Plan

Location: Dewberry Hall Advanced academic writing can be a challenging, laborious, and lonely activity, especially for graduate students who are still learning the norms of their academic communities, but at the same time are expected to write skillfully and extensively in their programs. Lack of confidence and productivity in writing may play a role in extending time to degree or hindering degree completion (Council of Graduate Schools, 2007).One source for supporting graduate student writers outside of the classroom is writing groups. Motivated by theories of situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and peer collaboration (Ferris & Hedgecock, 2005; Liu & Hansen, 2002), writing groups provide opportunities for discussing and practicing disciplinary conventions, providing and receiving productive feedback, and engaging in informal mentoring (Simpson, 2019). In addition to professional development opportunities, groups can also improve students’ motivation, help them deal with procrastination, and provide psychological peer support (Hixson et al., 2016; Starke-Meyerring, 2014). These advantages in turn can lead to a greater academic success and the sense of belonging in an academic community. While graduate writing groups have been extensively sponsored by writing centers across the country, including Mason’s Writing Center, student-led writing groups also provide a strong model for enhancing productivity, developing professional skills, and supporting degree completion. Faculty advisors can be instrumental, however, in initiating and launching such groups among their students and advisees (Hixson et al., 2016).The purpose of this poster presentation is to provide faculty, including advisors and program directors, with resources for establishing writing groups among their students and advisees. After introducing different types of groups, including accountability, feedback, and write-together groups, we will discuss the stages of initiating a writing group. These stages include 1) deciding on the format most suitable, given student priorities; 2) planning logistics (e.g., time, space, basic rules) and determining the role that the faculty will play initially; and 3) determining how to position students to take the lead as they move forward. Each stage will include a set of heuristic questions for the faculty to consider in order to create a specific plan for establishing groups in their contexts. While this poster presentation presumes an audience of graduate advisors, graduate writers themselves, as well as faculty who oversee undergraduate research projects, may also find this presentation relevant. Participants will be able to select an appropriate model for a writing group, specific to their context, and begin developing a plan for launching and sustaining such a group.

From Uncle Tom’s Cabin to “Countering Colston”: Slavery and Memory in a Transatlantic Undergraduate Research Project

AbstractIn 2016–17 and in 2018–19, undergraduate students and faculty at Huron University College in London, Canada, and at Bath Spa University in the UK collaborated on an innovative community-based research project: Phantoms of the Past: Slavery and Resistance, History and Memory in the Atlantic World. Our paper outlines the structure of the project, highlights student research, and argues that the Phantoms undergraduate student researchers helped to create an innovative and important body of work on transatlantic Public History and local commemorative practice.

Synthesizing Gold Nanoparticles Using Honey in Basic Solution under Leidenfrost Conditions To Aid Students in Reliably Reproducing Observable Color Changes

The Leidenfrost nanochemistry synthesis of gold colloids was introduced in this Journal as an advanced method to synthesize gold nanoparticles during an undergraduate nanochemistry research project...

FPGA implementation of error control codes in VHDL: An undergraduate research project

AbstractError control codes (ECC) play an important role in the detection and correction of data errors over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The main idea of ECC is to add redundant bits to the message on the transmitter, which can be used to detect and correct certain errors on the receiver. ECC are used in numerous applications such as telecommunications, Internet, and data storage. Different types of ECC exist such as linear block, convolutional, and turbo codes. This paper presents results from an innovative undergraduate research project involving implementation of linear block, cyclic and convolutional codes in very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL) using a field‐programmable gate array (FPGA). FPGA is a suitable platform for implementing ECC due to the advantages of performance, time to market, cost, reliability, and long‐term maintenance. As part of this project, (7,4) Hamming code used for linear block and cyclic codes and convolutional codes with constraint length k of 3 and code rate (k/n) of 1/2 were implemented in VHDL on a Xilinx Spartan‐6 FPGA using ISE 14.7. Two undergraduate students at Purdue University Northwest worked on this project. This was the students’ first exposure to ECC, VHDL, and FPGA, as undergraduate students are usually not introduced to these topics in traditional electrical and computer engineering curriculum. The goal of this project was to provide students with hands‐on experience using industry‐standard VHDL software and FPGA hardware platforms to implement ECC. This paper presents the results of this innovative project including register‐transfer level schematics, simulations, and VHDL code for encoders and decoders for the various ECC implemented, and students’ reflections on the project.

What do migration and meteorology have to do with Latin American studies? Bridges across disciplines at the United States Naval Academy

This essay explores how faculty from three different disciplines (applied linguistics, history, and meteorology), all with expertise in Latin America, have promoted an interdisciplinary approach toward Latin American studies through their study of migration and climate. The essay begins by reviewing the history and significance of the U.S. Department of Defense’s LREC initiative on tertiary Spanish language education. The essay then describes how climate and human interests in Latin America can be integrated into undergraduate courses and research projects to leverage students’ intellectual interests (in their major subject) with other academic pursuits (via a minor in Spanish). Finally, the essay discusses how demographic changes in the U.S. have impacted higher education in Spanish. The essay concludes by reviewing some of the guidelines that professional organizations and universities have put in place in response to these challenges, and offers some suggestions for how academics might respond in their institutional contexts.

A Qualitative Course-Based Inquiry into the Concept of Love as a Central Component of Child and Youth Care Practice

Child and Youth Care (CYC) students have the right to be engaged in pedagogical practices that inspire and arouse their curiosity about their field of practice. Undergraduate course-based research in which students have an opportunity to conduct authentic research within a for-credit course is one such high-impact pedagogical practice with a growing body of evidence-based outcomes. This article presents an undergraduate course-based research project that examined child and youth care student’s beliefs about displaying love as a component of their practice. Located in the constructivist/interpretive research paradigm, this course-based research project collected data through the use of an expressive arts-based data method followed by a semi-structured questionnaire. Four overarching themes were identified during the thematic analysis: (a) authentic caring involves expressions of love, (b) expressions of love are an essential component of growth and development, (c) loving care as an ethic of relational practice, and (d) but…professionalism stands in the way. The results of this course-based study suggest that expressing love as a component of relational-centred CYC practice is not fully understood by CYC students and that much more research is needed to explore this issue.

Fatal Attraction: Visual Cues in Attracting Prey to Carnivorous Plants

Exposing students to carnivorous plants within course-based undergraduate research can heighten student interest in plants and create a foundation on which to build future student projects. Carnivorous plants derive nutrients by trapping animals, but unlike most other predators, they lack mobility and are thought to attract prey through a combination of visual and olfactory cues. As part of a semester-long undergraduate research project for a junior/senior-level plant ecology class, students used carnivorous plants and artificial traps to test the importance of visual cues in the capture of wild-type and visually impaired (w1118) Drosophila melanogaster. Over the 13-week semester, students worked in groups to generate questions, design experiments, analyze data, and present results both orally and in a written manuscript. A major focus was developing students' ability to compare their results with the literature. Upon completion, manuscripts were uploaded to a digital archive for use by future students in designing projects. This database of readily accessible past projects provides students with an accessible literature base that enables them to build upon previous work in a way that more accurately reflects real-world research.

Patient‐Specific Hemodynamic Analysis of Coronary Arteries

In cases of severe cardiac stenosis, the selection of treatment options including angioplasty, stent insertion, and bypass surgery are based on cardiac diagnosis provided by electrocardiograms, stress tests, and angiograms. Although these diagnostic tools are all vital, it is still difficult to determine the true extent to which normal blood flow has been compromised. To date, a clear guideline for aggressive intervention does not exist, as stenosis characteristics can vary greatly between patients. Plaque composition, compressibility, and shape are all factors that can modify a patient's risk of incurring a life‐threatening cardiac event in the near future. Our work aims to establish a streamlined computational model that can provide accurate estimation of dynamic shear stress and tensile strain on a plaque based on a patient's specific geometry. Together with flow information provided by 4D cardiac MRI, information from the computational model will allow a cardiologist to make better informed decisions regarding therapeutic options for patient cardiac health.The goal of this undergraduate research project was to determine the most effective method for 3D reconstruction and segmentation of the heart and coronary arteries from patient‐specific CTA (computed tomography angiography) data. The resulting 3D geometry will be imported into COMSOL, a computational fluid dynamics software, for hemodynamics and stress‐strain analysis.Patients' CTA data was provided by the Cardiac Imaging Department of the St. Francis Hospital (with IRB approval). A set of 2097 images were imported into a 3D reconstruction software, 3D Slicer (http://www.slicer.org), and visualized in sagittal, axial, and coronal views. By scanning through images in each plane, major components of the heart (i.e., atria, ventricles, aorta, coronary arteries) were identified manually. 3D reconstruction and segmentation were accomplished using a seeding procedure in which each part of the heart was carefully selected and identified as an individual component. 3D Slicer then generated a 3D‐reconstructed geometry of the heart from seeds. Proper seeding allowed different components of the heart to be visualized individually in the 3D viewer, enabling isolation of the coronary arteries from the whole heart model.Preliminary results showed a 3D model of the whole heart from CTA data with the left main coronary isolated. Manual segmentation was found to be challenging because coronary artery branches are embedded within the cardiac muscle. It was demonstrated to be efficient to refine seeds for coronary artery identification and segmentation by carefully examining the 3D model and performing several iterations of correction. The coronary artery geometry generated in 3D Slicer is then processed by a Vascular Modeling Tool Kit (VMTK, an open source software) to generate the proper geometries (in .stl format) needed for COMSOL, for hemodynamics modeling and analysis.As methods for reconstruction and segmentation are further refined, computational modeling will be used as a high throughput tool to generate useful information on stress/strain conditions within the coronary arteries, moving toward our goal of streamlined personalized cardiac treatment.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Sustainability-Focused Undergraduate Research and Pre-service Teachers’ Agency to act as Sustainability Educators

Abstract The current study has investigated the impact of sustainability-focused undergraduate research projects on pre-service teachers’ agency to act as sustainability educators in their classrooms. Twenty-seven pre-service teachers participated in this design-based study for a period of 11 weeks. The data were collected through classroom observations (before and after implementing the intervention i.e. undergraduate research projects) and short interviews. Comparison of pre-intervention and post-intervention observations indicated that the sustainability-focused undergraduate research projects were partially effective in preparing pre-service teachers as sustainability educators. The study findings suggest including standalone courses on sustainability education in teacher education programmes.

Estrategias para el desarrollo y consolidación de la línea de investigación alfabetización en información: el caso de la Facultad de Información y Comunicación de la Universidad de la República

Se presenta el estado de desarrollo de la línea de la línea de investigación Alfabetización en Información en la Facultad de Información y Comunicación de la Universidad de la República (Uruguay). A partir de un relevamiento de distintas fuentes de información que hacen al quehacer académico-institucional: los proyectos de investigación realizados y en curso tanto a nivel de grado como de posgrado; los proyectos de investigación y desarrollo, la producción bibliográfica, la formación de recursos humanos, la movilidad académica, la interdisciplinariedad, entre otros, se propone una sistematización de la información en un formato de líneas estratégicas. Al mismo tiempo que se describe, analiza y reflexiona sobre el proceso que ha permitido este desarrollo tanto a nivel académico como institucional. Se espera que esta comunicación resulte un insumo para seguir promoviendo la cooperación, el intercambio y las redes académicas tan necesarias para la construcción de conocimiento.

Measuring quality in high-impact practices

High-impact practices (HIPs), such as undergraduate research, internships, and senior-capstone projects, are prominent within the academy. Scholars surmise aspects of HIP quality (e.g., student effort, peer collaboration, and faculty interaction) are related to desired outcomes for students (e.g., engagement, GPA, and satisfaction). Using data from the 2015 administration of the National Survey of Student Engagement, respondents who participated in these three HIPs were asked additional questions regarding quality of experience. Results from this study indicate that increased levels of expectations, faculty interaction, and real-world application are related to increases in outcomes; however, these relationships are not consistent among underserved populations.