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Improving retention and graduate recruitment through immersive research experiences for undergraduates

Published: 12 March 2008 Publication History

Abstract

Research experiences for undergraduates are considered an effective means for increasing student retention and encouraging undergraduate students to continue on to graduate school. However, managing a cohort of undergraduate researchers, with varying skill levels, can be daunting for faculty advisors. We have developed a program to engage students in research and outreach in visualization, virtual reality, networked robotics, and interactive games. Our program immerses students into the life of a lab, employing a situated learning approach that includes tiered mentoring and collaboration to enable students at all levels to contribute to research. Students work in research teams comprised of other undergraduates, graduate students and faculty, and participate in professional development and social gatherings within the larger cohort. Results from our first two years indicate this approach is manageable and effective for increasing students' ability and desire to conduct research.

References

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Aspray, W., & Bernat, A. Recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority graduate students in computer science: Report of a workshop, March 4-5, 2000. Washington, DC: Computing Research Association.
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Peckham, J., Stephenson, P., Hervé, J., Hutt, R., and Encarnação, M. 2007. Increasing student retention in computer science through research programs for undergraduates. SIGCSE 2007: 124--128.
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Walker, E.L. and Slotterbeck, O.A. 2006. Integrated Research Components: A practical and effective alternative to senior projects. Journal of Computing Science in Colleges. 22, 1 (Oct.2006), 72--83.
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Barnes, T., H. Richter, E. Powell, A. Chaffin, A. Godwin. Game2Learn: Building CS1 learning games for retention. ITiCSE2007: 121--125.
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Granger, M., G. Amoussou, M. Labrador, S. Perry, & K. Van Busum. Research Experience for Undergraduates: Successes and Challenges, SIGCSE Bull. 38, 1 (Mar. 2006), 558--9.
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Ben-Ari, M. Situated learning in computer science education. Computer Science Ed. 14, 2 (2004), 85--100.
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  • (2023)Mini-Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience: Impact on Student Understanding of STEM Research and Interest in STEM ProgramsJournal of College Science Teaching10.2505/4/jcst19_048_06_4448:6(44-54)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
  • (2022)Open-Source Internships With Industry MentorsProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524763(365-371)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
  • (2019)Understanding CS Undergraduate Students' Professional Identity through the lens of their Professional DevelopmentProceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3304221.3319764(9-15)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2019
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGCSE '08: Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
    March 2008
    606 pages
    ISBN:9781595937995
    DOI:10.1145/1352135
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Publication History

    Published: 12 March 2008

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    Author Tags

    1. education
    2. undergraduate research

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    View all
    • (2023)Mini-Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience: Impact on Student Understanding of STEM Research and Interest in STEM ProgramsJournal of College Science Teaching10.2505/4/jcst19_048_06_4448:6(44-54)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
    • (2022)Open-Source Internships With Industry MentorsProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524763(365-371)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
    • (2019)Understanding CS Undergraduate Students' Professional Identity through the lens of their Professional DevelopmentProceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3304221.3319764(9-15)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2019
    • (2019)Utilizing the Affinity Research Group Model in a Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates ProgramProceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3287324.3287501(990-996)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2019
    • (2019)Research gradualness matrix for undergraduate students in computing related careers2019 IEEE World Conference on Engineering Education (EDUNINE)10.1109/EDUNINE.2019.8875850(1-6)Online publication date: Mar-2019
    • (2018)Practical problem-based learning: An interdisciplinary approach2018 IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC)10.1109/ISECon.2018.8340496(258-261)Online publication date: Mar-2018
    • (2017)Using Phoenix++ MapReduce to introduce undergraduate students to parallel computingJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3069658.306968232:6(165-174)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2017
    • (2017)Bringing Undergraduate Research Experience in Non-R1 InstitutionsProceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3017680.3017689(671-672)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2017
    • (2015)Teaching Computing as Science in a Research ExperienceProceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/2676723.2677231(24-29)Online publication date: 24-Feb-2015
    • (2014)Course-embedded research in software development coursesProceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/2538862.2538927(45-48)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2014
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