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Growing as an Undergraduate Researcher and the Benefits of Directed Research

Scientific research has become the foundation for much of today’s public policy, medicine, lifestyle choices, and financial investments. We generally conduct research to learn more about the world and maybe find objective truth in the process, like the truth we have found in the existence of gravity and time. In many ways, science has allowed us to improve our quality of life and our society as a whole. Because of this, we take science seriously and try to maximize its success by investing in it, giving it structure, and treating it with rigor.

The author summiting the Travers-Sabine Saddle on his backpacking trip with fellow EcoQuesters.

Science starts with motivated students and their interest in getting involved with research. Bringing along young researchers is arguably the most important part of science today. Inspiring and guiding young researchers ensures that our society will continue to benefit from research in the future. Fortunately, academic institutions have several ways of getting students involved with the research process and sparking their interest in new subjects. As a fourth-year environmental science major and undergraduate researcher at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), I can say wholeheartedly that directed research has been the most transformative experience in allowing me to grow as a young scientist.  

My Undergraduate Research Journey

As a second-year student, before taking part in directed research, I was fortunate to get involved with a research group at UNH studying water systems. The group consisted of undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs researching water system issues throughout the world. I started as a research assistant for two semesters and was later awarded a summer research grant from the National Science Foundation through the New Hampshire Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). Interested in the mitigation of nitrogen runoff in watersheds, I focused my research on the spatial variability of denitrification in local reservoirs. This project wasn’t structured in such a way that I could expect extensive guidance from the members of my lab. I met with my mentor occasionally, but because of the independent nature of this project, I struggled with communication, executing the scientific process, and grasping the implications of the research. Had I had more experience, I likely would have felt more comfortable; nevertheless, I was inspired to grow as a researcher and to develop fundamental skills in new projects.

I sought an opportunity to study abroad and joined the EcoQuest Education Foundation program in New Zealand during the spring of my junior year. This UNH-administered program welcomes students of many majors and universities and gives students the opportunity to understand sustainability, what challenges the ability of New Zealanders to live sustainably, and the solutions they have explored to address these challenges. The program is based in a rural area close to Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand. The first nine weeks of the program are dedicated to three courses: restoration ecology, biogeography, and policy. The courses center on place-based learning consisting of lectures, field exercises, discussions, and guest lectures. This format is employed throughout the curriculum to offer firsthand educational experience for all three courses. Learning takes place in a variety of indoor and outdoor locations on the North Island, as well as in three weeks spent on the South Island, that focus on ecotourism, alpine ecology, and beech forest ecology.

The final five weeks are spent completing a directed-research project: two weeks of preparation and data collection, two weeks of analysis, and a week to complete the final report and presentation. In the simplest sense, a directed-research project emphasizes the collaboration of a student team with a research mentor who offers fundamental guidance in the research process. Collectively, it is the most efficient way for a novice researcher to develop core research skills, focusing entirely on fundamental techniques without the expectations of advanced research. The group setting allows the mentor to support several students, making the more intensive effort worthwhile. For me, this experience was extremely helpful, my only regret being that I had not had a chance to complete it sooner in my college career.

For our project, my team assessed a restoration project at Lake Waikare in the Waikato Region of the North Island. The lake has suffered pollution in the form of pathogen intrusion, nutrient runoff, and excessive sediment deposition. To combat these processes, the local government and scientists have strategically planted native tree species around the lake. To assess the success of this effort, my team studied the biodiversity of invertebrates in the surrounding soil ecosystems. The presence of high species diversity, particularly rare native species, would indicate a healthy ecosystem at the lake. I worked with four of my classmates every day, adhering to a strict schedule set by our research mentor. Though the schedule was strict, our mentor was devoted to making sure we understood how to approach each task. We started with intensive literature review of papers already retrieved for us from scientific journals by our mentor. This was followed by data collection, which involved invertebrate sampling and water sampling.

To sample invertebrates, we used common methodology from other invertebrate studies. We set up pitfall traps (insects walk into a container), took soil samples, used a beating tray to sample the branches of vegetation (hitting a plant with a stick to knock insects into a tray), and took detritus samples (gathering leaves into a bag). This allowed us to compare biodiversity across reference sites composed of different vegetation types representing varying stages of restoration. 

Water sampling entailed using test kits to measure phosphorus, nitrogen, and pH in addition to using other instruments for measuring the  E. colic  ontent, temperature, and conductivity at various sites around the lake. With water and invertebrate sampling experience, we learned the process of finding common practices for a certain type of study and modifying them in our methodology to address the specific research question. This aspect of the research was very interesting and helpful for future research.

Like other research teams at EcoQuest, Jake and his team were given their own space to conduct research and collaborate on their project.

During this time, we also met with several professionals who offered us information we could use in writing our report. Because the directed-research projects are part of long-term projects at EcoQuest, stakeholders of various cultures and organizations (e.g., universities and government agencies) have also become invested in working with students on their research projects. This allowed us students to work with different professionals and officials while also giving them the opportunity to learn from our findings. We each wrote our own papers in segments throughout the five weeks, following a chronology set by our mentor (introduction, methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments, then abstract). For each segment we wrote two drafts, the second of which was graded. This gave us the opportunity to go over a draft with our mentor and learn how to perfect our writing. 

As a team we worked together constantly on data collection, analysis, and writing. We identified and counted more than 40,000 invertebrates from the various kinds of samples we took. This massive data output gave us a robust basis for assessing the effect of the restoration strategy at the lake and making recommendations for improvement. Although we wrote our papers independently, we often discussed what we planned to include as the main features of our research. This allowed us to see the data and literature from different perspectives and develop our analytical skills. Any confusion throughout the research process, whether derived from a team conflict or a misunderstanding of the materials, was always resolved by our mentor and turned into a learning experience. Our final papers ranged from thirty to fifty pages long, and as a team, we gave a twenty-five-minute PowerPoint presentation to local stakeholders, staff, classmates, and family.

For major stakeholders, like the local Māori tribe members and the Department of Conservation, our results were incredibly insightful, giving these people updated information on the status of the lake and offering new ideas on how to address the problem. Particularly for the Māori, protecting the native species and the quality of the water at the lake are of the utmost importance, because these entities have sacred significance in their culture. It was an honor to contribute to this cause through the directed-research project. We hope our findings will inform the design of conservation policy and help protect the environmental quality of the lake’s ecosystem, given its profound cultural value in the local community and culture.

The team presentation was a great way to complete the project, because we had to work as one unit and condense our weeks of research into a short description that adequately informed our audience. Learning to overcome the pressure and present with confidence was just as important as learning to complete a literature review, writing the reports, or any other aspect.

A New and Improved Researcher

Before and during my time in New Zealand, I had been working with Dr. Shadi Atallah at UNH on an application for a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Abroad (SURF Abroad), a program offered by the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research at UNH. We proposed a social science research project studying rural livelihood dependence on an endemic palm species in western Ecuador. While in New Zealand, I was informed that my application had been approved, so two weeks after returning to the United States, I traveled to Ecuador to start my research. I am interested in Latin American culture and the pressing issue of deforestation in the face of climate change, so this project was an amazing opportunity to use my new research skills while taking on a project with personal significance. Through focus groups and interviews with members of several indigenous communities, my foreign research mentor, Dr. Rommel Montúfar, and I found that a majority of benefits the communities perceived were not among the benefits being taken into account by the government. For example, the palm was very important to building and maintaining community relationships; many participants reported that their interaction with others depended on tasks related to the palm.

Jake personally conducted many interviews as part of his research in Ecuador. They always took place in participants’ homes or other settings where they felt comfortable.

My SURF Abroad research was very complex and required that I perfect skills beyond those of a beginner researcher. I often planned meetings with researchers from around the world and constantly switched between using Spanish and English to complete the research. With a great deal of traveling required to conduct interviews, I faced several obstacles that pushed me to further my ability to improvise and form plans. In the lab, I spent hours going through literature on a wide variety of topics, and I learned to synthesize my findings in an expedited manner.  

Having written the proposal for SURF Abroad before going to EcoQuest, and then completing the SURF research after returning from New Zealand, it is clear that my directed-research project experience allowed me to grow strides beyond the researcher I had been. Writing my SURF proposal took many hours because I struggled with big-picture research concepts, literature, and writing structure. However, these tasks and skills became almost trivial after completing my directed-research project, which then allowed me to focus on more advanced research skills while in Ecuador. Completing mass quantities of literature review, coordinating with a team, collecting data, analyzing it, and writing were far less daunting tasks than they would have been before my directed-research experience. The field of my research in New Zealand was also very different from that of my research in Ecuador. This shows how the benefits of the directed-research project were not specific to my topic, and my growth as a researcher was not bound to a particular field.

In reflecting on my undergraduate research experiences, it is obvious to me now that a directed-research project would have been a perfect way to start as a researcher. In only five weeks, I developed fundamental skills quickly, and any confusion that arose was settled smoothly by my mentor. It would have been best if I had participated in the water systems research after my directed-research project. The water systems project structure was more appropriate for a student with more experience and skills who could function more independently from a lab group and research mentor. I believe if I had had the directed-research experience first, my water systems project would have gone far better and could possibly have allowed me to coauthor a paper.

The Future of Science and Research

Research has allowed me to explore several facets of sustainability, which is my passion in my career and my life as a whole. With experience studying environmental systems, restoration, and economics, I am now prepared to investigate new facets of sustainability, such as agriculture, investing, and advocacy. Research has taught me much about my life and my place in the world, which is knowledge I would hope any passionate student could access through undergraduate research.

Based on my experience with the EcoQuest program, it is clear that it would be extremely beneficial to make directed research available to more students. Although directed-research projects can be enhanced in an international setting, they would be equally beneficial on a local scale. An appropriate chronology in undergraduate research is also important. With the support and guidance offered by directed research, an aspiring researcher can make early strides in meeting their full potential by pursuing this kind of project first. Such a student could move swiftly into advanced research as early as their third year of college, committing to programs like SURF. Given that young researchers are the future of science, investing in their development should be a priority, and I believe that directed research presents an amazing opportunity to do this.

I am so lucky to have completed three research projects as an undergraduate student, and none of it would have been possible without the support of my amazing mentors and peers. Thank you to Dr. David Clarke for his mentorship and contribution to all aspects of my directed-research project. Thank you to Jono Clark, Ria Brejaart, and Dean Kimberly Babbitt, the coordinators of the EcoQuest program.  Thank you to  the Nikau Estate Trust at Matahuru marae, Lake Waikare.  Thank you to Dr. Rommel Montúfar (PUCE) and Dr. Shadi Atallah (UNH) for their mentorship and contribution to all aspects of my Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Thank you to Dr. Wil Wollheim, my academic adviser and head of the Water Systems Analysis Group at UNH. Thank you to the Hamel Center at the University of New Hampshire for funding my Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Thank you to the EcoQuest Education Foundation for funding my directed-research project. Thank you to the National Science Foundation for funding my summer research with the NH EPSCoR Ecosystems & Society Project. Thank you to Dr. Georgeann Murphy for assisting in the logistics of conducting my Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, for encouraging me to publish in  Inquiry , and for motivating me to work harder.

Author and Mentor Bios

Jake Gehrung , from Walpole, New Hampshire, is completing a major in environmental science and two minors: business administration and Spanish. He will graduate with his bachelor of science degree in May 2020. His passion is “to gain a holistic view of sustainability, and drive change through political and economic efforts.” Jake participated in several research projects through programs at the University of New Hampshire and says, “Research is one of the most sophisticated ways of learning about the world. Educating myself on people and the environment has been my priority as a college student.” In particular, Jake enjoyed research that involved cultural connections. “In New Zealand, I was able to support indigenous stakeholders and present my findings to them; in Ecuador, I learned so much about both rural and urban culture and how they alter the perception of the natural world.” Jake decided to write a commentary for  Inquiry  to inform others about the great value of a rigorous directed-research experience.

David Clarke  is a lecturer for EcoQuest Education Foundation in Whakatiwai, Kaiaua, New Zealand. He shares responsibility for teaching the EcoQuest program content as well as designing and coordinating EcoQuest directed-research projects. Dr. Clarke’s own research interests include wetland restoration ecology, invertebrate ecology, acaralogy (the study of mites), and the study of long-tailed bats, an endemic species in New Zealand. When Jake attended the Ecology in Action semester program, Dr. Clarke served as his EcoQuest research mentor in New Zealand. Their research project focused on assessing soil invertebrates as bioindicators in a degraded lake catchment. Dr. Clarke has been the designer and supervisor for all directed-research projects related to the wider research initiative, which involves input from regional councils, community groups, universities, and private research institutions. He has supervised many undergraduate researchers, both during his PhD candidacy at the National University of Ireland Galway (2010–2015) and in his role at EcoQuest since 2016.

Shadi S. Atallah  is an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of New Hampshire, where he has taught since 2015. Dr. Atallah’s research encompasses agricultural, resource, and environmental economics, and he specializes in bioeconomics, the study of the economic management of biological resources. He recently started a collaboration with universities in Ecuador, Colombia, and France to research biodiversity and ecosystem services in the tropical Andes. It is through this collaboration, LMI BIO-INCA, that he met Jake’s mentor in Ecuador, Rommel Montúfar. One of their areas of interest is the ivory palm, which became the focus of Jake’s summer research. “Through Jake’s research, I now have an assessment of the relative importance of economic uses to noneconomic uses of the tagua palm,” Dr. Atallah said. “This information is critical for me before I embark on assessing the resource and its use from an economic perspective.”

Rommel Montúfar  is an associate professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador in Quito, Ecuador. He mentored Jake during his Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in that country. Dr. Montúfar is also a director of LMI BIO-INCA, an international consortium of scientists. His current research projects include genetic diversity of  Mauritia flexuosa  (Arecaceae) in Yasuní National Park in Ecuador and regional genetic patterns of  Oenocarpus bataua/Euterpe precatoria  (Arecaceae) in northwest South America.

Contact the author 

Copyright 2020, Jake Gehrung

Inquiry Journal

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Directed Research Opportunities

Undergraduate directed research.

Everything You Need To Know

Directed Research (PSYS 392/492) is a class in which you work on a research project with a faculty mentor. Unlike a regular class, where you follow a fixed syllabus, a Directed Research project is much more open ended. The key requirement for Directed Research is that it leads to a product (e.g., a writeup or poster presentation about your work), that can be graded. Learn more from the dropdowns below:

What kind of research project will I be doing?

No two Directed Research projects are alike. The range of possible projects is enormous and depends very much on your interests and those of your faculty mentor.

Past projects have included analyzing behavior in game shows, running neuropsychological studies on older adults, measuring electrical signals in the brain in response to stimuli, and exploring the causes and correlates of implicit bias. Some of these projects have even led to published papers such as this work on phishing email detection  or this work on how personality affects participation in the Psychology Subject pool

In some projects, you work largely on your own on a small research project. In other projects, you work in a group as part of a much larger project. In all cases your work is ultimately supervised by a faculty mentor who assigns a grade for the Directed Research course at the end of the semester.

The key requirement of your Directed Research project is that it leads to a product that can be graded. This product can be almost anything, so long as it can be assessed by the faculty mentor to assign a letter grade for the class. Example products include: a Powerpoint presentation delivered in lab meeting, a poster, a written report, computer code to analyze experimental data, an organized dataset that is ready for sharing, etc.

Finding a Lab and Faculty Mentor

Seeking out a lab and/or faculty member to work with will be a proactive process on your part.  While your advising team and the Psychology Department can assist with the basics, ultimately, you will be responsible for seeking your research lab. Here are some tips:

• Search for Faculty currently accepting Undergraduate Research Assistants  for Directed Research.
• Check your email. Directed Research opportunities are sent out through the Psychology-Advising email to all students on our student listserv throughout the year.
• Read and refer to the Psychology Monthly Newsletters. Announcements about research opportunities are sent out in the newsletters. Archives of the newsletters can be found HERE .
• Talk to your faculty!  Your instructors are likely also researchers.  Speak with them about their labs and inquire about opportunities.

Contacting Faculty Members

Contacting faculty members can seem intimidating, but professional communication is a skill you'll need your entire career, so this is a great way to practice!

•  For each of the labs at the top of your list, write an email to the faculty or their designated contact, being sure to address them by their proper title, like Professor or Dr.  (not "hey")
• You email should say, in your own words, your grade level, major, and you are looking for a lab position.  You are particularly interested in their lab because…(some of this can be from the web site review you did, but keep it short).  Then ask if they have any open positions and if so, you would like the opportunity to be considered for it.  You can attach a resume if you like.  Make sure that your email is grammatically correct, that all the words are spelled correctly, and that you don’t use text-messaging short cuts, like “i” instead of “I.” 
• See our Email Etiquette Guide  for help writing a successful email.
• Be patient, yet persistent.   Faculty members and busy labs receive a lot of emails each day, and you should be prepared to wait 3-5 business days during the fall/spring semester. Most faculty do not work regularly during the summer, so response times will be slower.

Enrolling in Research Credit

Because you work with a faculty mentor, signing up for Directed Research credit is slightly different to a normal class. Instead of simply signing up for the class, you need to first make contact with your potential mentor and obtain their agreement to work with you. You can find a list of potential mentors and their contact information here .

Once you have identified potential faculty mentors, reach out to them to discuss what kind of projects you could do in their lab. Some mentors will have ongoing projects that you can step into, others will be willing to work with you to develop a new project involving new experiments or analyses.

To help set expectations before you begin your Directed Research project, it is important to fill out the Directed Research Enrollment Form (below), which outlines goals for the project and a timeline to achieve them.

Directed Research Form

Once your form is completed, signed by you and the instructor, submit to [email protected] or bring to Psychology Department Office in Psychology 312.

When should I sign up for Directed Research credit?

In order to fulfill the 9-unit requirement, you should plan to sign up for Directed Research credit across 3 semesters (3 units per semester) in your junior and senior year.  However, if you find an opportunity earlier in your undergraduate career, you can begin as early as your second year.

What is the time commitment for Directed Research?

Directed Research should take up no more or less time than a regular class. This corresponds to 3 hours per week per unit. In most cases, students take one 3-unit Directed Research class per semester and should expect to work approximately 9 hours per week on their project.

Updated 01/18/23

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Directed Research and Study

DIRECTED RESEARCH AND STUDY APPLICATION FORMS MUST BE SUBMITTED AND APPROVED BEFORE REGISTERING FOR THE COURSE. SUBMISSION AND APPROVAL OF THE PERMISSION FORMS DO NOT CONSTITUTE REGISTRATION.

A Directed Research and Study project is one what involves either:

• faculty directed independent scholarly research culminating in a final paper or project; or
• faculty directed independent study involving knowledge skills or experience related to law, regular student faculty interaction, and faculty feedback and evaluation.

Rules for Directed Research and Study (DRS)

• Directed Research and Study (DRS) offerings must be approved in advance of registration for the course. For DRS offerings of 3 credits or less per term, the approval must be sought from the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. For DRS offerings of 4-6 credits per term, approval must be sought from the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs pursuant to Rule 7, below.
• In the Fall and Spring terms, students must register for DRS by the twelfth class day of the long term. For the summer session, students must register for DRS by the fourth class day of the first term. DRS is available only as a full-term course. Late registration for DRS is not available.
• DRS may be offered only by a law school faculty member (including modified service faculty, lecturers, library staff who regularly teach courses for credit, and visiting faculty), or an interdisciplinary faculty member. Except in extraordinary circumstances DRS offerings may not be supervised by adjunct faculty members.
• The predominant purpose of all DRS offerings must be to provide a substantial pedagogic benefit to the student. All DRS offerings must entail close and sustained faculty supervision. If the DRS offering is intended to culminate in a final product (either written or otherwise), that product must reflect serious independent research and analysis on the part of the student. An appendix to these rules includes a nonexclusive list of the types of projects that are appropriate for DRS credit and the types that are not.
• Students may register for no more than one DRS offering per term, except in extraordinary circumstances approved by the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs or Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
• Unless granted an exception by the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, a student may take no more than 6 DRS credit hours with any particular faculty member. Exceptions should be granted only where the student has proposed an unusually ambitious project of substantial pedagogic value that cannot fruitfully be undertaken without an exemption from this rule.
• To obtain permission to register for a DRS offering of 4-6 credits in one term, the student and their faculty advisor must prepare a detailed proposal explaining the purpose of the project, the proposed course of study, the extent and type of faculty supervision that will be provided to the student, and the type of final product that will result from the DRS. This DRS Proposal must be submitted to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, which will then schedule a meeting at which the student and the faculty supervisor must appear to discuss the project. The proposal must be approved by the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs before the student may register for the DRS offering.
• To obtain permission to register for more than 6 DRS credits with a particular faculty advisor, the student and her faculty advisor must prepare a detailed proposal explaining the purpose of the project, the proposed course of study, the extent and type of faculty supervision that will be provided to the student, the type of final product that will result from the DRS, and the exceptional circumstances that justify an exception to the 6 credit maximum with a particular professor. This DRS Proposal must be submitted to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, which will then schedule a meeting at which the student and the faculty supervisor must appear to discuss the project. The proposal must be approved by the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs before the student may register for the DRS offering.
• DRS offerings of 1-3 credits may be assessed on a pass/fail standard or awarded a letter grade, at the discretion of the supervising faculty member. Election of the grading standard and credit hours may only occur when the permission form is submitted. Any DRS project that is awarded a letter grade must culminate in the production of a final product upon which that grade is to be based. A 1-credit DRS should result in a paper that is at least 20 double-spaced pages, a 2-credit DRS should result in a paper equal to that of a seminar (30-40 double-spaced pages), and 3 credits may be awarded for work substantially beyond that (50-60 double-spaced pages).
• All DRS offerings of more than 3 credits must be awarded a letter grade on the basis of a final product. The final product must be submitted to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs before a grade can be submitted for the course by the supervising faculty member.
• A maximum of 12 DRS credits may be counted toward the fulfillment of law school graduation requirements.
• The number of credit hours to be awarded DRS projects is a function of time spent by the student. Each credit hour represents at least 60 hours of work by the student. Ordinarily, a Directed Research project should receive two hours credit. Three credits may be awarded for work substantially beyond that normally required for a seminar paper.
• At the end of each term, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs must circulate to the tenured and tenure-track faculty a list of all the DRS projects approved under paragraphs 5, 6, 7, and 8 above.

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Four principles for assessing student-directed projects

By Karen Brennan, Sarah Blum-Smith, Paulina Haduong | Nov 29, 2021 | Feature Article

The individualized nature of student projects makes them a challenge to assess. Here’s how computer science teachers are creating more effective assessments.

When we asked a longtime computer science teacher at a large public school to describe his classroom, he said, “Mostly, what you would see is people making stuff.” In his class, students explore their personal interests and questions through self-directed projects, no two of them the same. The teacher was excited about how much his students seemed to be learning about coding and programming, but he was having trouble figuring out how to gauge the specifics of their progress: “I don’t know how to assess that — how to know that they actually learned something. That’s my challenge for creative, open-ended, project-based work.”

This teacher’s conundrum is not unique. In our research, we’ve come across many K-12 computing teachers who are excited about the powerful learning that can occur when students engage in open-ended and personally meaningful projects. Yet, these same teachers are uncertain how to determine what those projects reflect about students’ content understanding and what the work means to them personally. In some cases, teachers go ahead and design project-based experiences but do not include assessment of what students know and still need to learn. Other times, teachers’ doubt and uncertainty about assessment makes them reluctant to proceed with project-based learning at all (Brennan, 2015).

As a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021) makes clear, self-directed project-based learning is a key strategy for broadening students’ participation and deepening their engagement in computing. Indeed, our own research and teaching are informed by a tradition that views self-directed projects as a rich context for creation, expression, and learning in the field of computer science (Papert, 1980). However, and like the teacher we interviewed, we’ve always found such work difficult to assess, and we’ve found little consensus among experts in our discipline about how best to assess student-led projects (Blikstein, 2018).

Recognizing and supporting learners as individuals requires teachers to attend to not only what students create but also how they create it.

To better understand how teachers think about the complexity of assessing student-directed projects, we conducted an empirical research study of how 80 K-12 computing teachers who included student-directed programming projects in their curricula assessed students’ work. At the same time, we completed an interdisciplinary review of the research literature on assessing open-ended work. We knew that other disciplines — such as visual arts and language arts — have long wrestled with such questions, and we hoped that they might offer insights into how to determine evidence of learning in computer science projects, as well as how we can provide feedback that acknowledges students’ aspirations and efforts (Ozaki, Worley, & Cherry, 2015).

Rather than pointing us toward specific assessment tools (e.g., the use of scoring rubrics), our research led us to four principles that can guide teachers as they begin thinking about how their assessments can consider learners’ current interests, knowledge, and capabilities while supporting their ongoing growth and development. In short, assessment should:

• Recognize the individuality of the learner.
• Illuminate the learning process.
• Engage multiple perspectives.
• Cultivate capacity for personal judgment.

Each of these four principles is supported by research from across disciplines, and while we’re particularly interested in the assessment of project-based learning in computer science, we hope that they will prove equally useful to teachers in other fields.

To illustrate how these principles can be applied in practice, we describe the ways in which Erin, a grade 6-12 computing teacher, used them to assess the learning of students who designed and built apps for phones and tablets. Though we focus on Erin, we found that these principles were used, to at least some extent, by all of the 80 teachers in our study.

Recognize learners’ individuality

The standardized forms of assessment that prevail in most public schools tend to focus on “bringing every student to the same standard rather than looking at individual gains and personal bests” (Richard, 2010, p. 193). The vast majority of the teachers in our study described assessment as a means of understanding the individual learners in their classrooms, both their current capabilities and what they intended to learn and achieve through their projects. Most said that the goal should be to determine what is personally meaningful for each student, while acknowledging the potential variability of the work that different students will produce.

We found a useful model of this sort of assessment in the research on writing instruction. In English language arts classrooms, students are often asked to produce open-ended work that is grounded in personal perspectives, interests, and experiences. And when responding to and assessing student writing, teachers are advised to begin “with the subjectivities of the students and their desire to realize (rather than simply produce) meanings” (Robinson & Ellis, 2000, p. 75). Also, teachers often involve learners in articulating their own goals and aspirations for the work and in designing assessment criteria (Taggart et al., 1999). Developing trusting relationships with students and asking them about their goals can reveal important (and potentially hidden) facets of the work (Zhang, Schunn, & Baikadi, 2017).

In her computing classroom, Erin works to build precisely these kinds of relationships with her students. At the beginning of every project-based assignment, she schedules a one-on-one check-in interview with each student, asking them about their interests, the kinds of apps they like, what they aspire to create, their current capabilities, and what skills and content knowledge they hope to learn, and she uses these goals as the basis for individualized assessment:

They give me a parameter of what they’re going to produce. How they actually do that is up to them. My assessment is: “Did you do that? Did you meet your own requirements for what you proposed you would do?”

At the end of their app development project, each student submits a project documentation that summarizes the purpose, attributes, and development process of their app. Erin then compares these documents to the student’s initial goals and plans to gauge the extent to which they achieved their vision. Of course, students’ final projects do not necessarily include every feature they had hoped to include. However, the comparison between goals and eventual designs is not meant to penalize students for changes in creative direction or challenges they could not overcome by the due date. Rather, the comparison informs Erin’s understanding of learners’ evolving capabilities in relation to the goals they set for themselves and what they learned while completing their individual projects.

Illuminate the learning process

Recognizing and supporting learners as individuals requires teachers to attend to not only what students create but also how they create it. Accordingly, this principle invites teachers to view projects at multiple points in time, in contrast to most traditional forms of assessment (including standardized tests), which gauge students’ performance on a particular day or evaluate the end product of their work.

In our review of the research on assessing open-ended projects, we found that scholars and practitioners in a number of fields have long urged teachers to use multiple forms of assessment, spanning the length of the project (Earl, 2012; McGuinness & Brien, 2007; Orr, 2010; Richards, 2010). For example, professional visual artists, writers, and craftspeople often describe their work as an ongoing process, and within those fields, regular feedback and revision tend to be viewed as essential practices (Brocato, 2009; Eisner, 2004). Likewise, when teachers check in with students at regular intervals, ask questions about their work in progress, and provide feedback meant to guide them in their next steps, they communicate to learners that redrafting and revising are not signs of failure and that every open-ended project depends on an iterative process.

For example, early in the app development process, Erin asks her students to give short (two- or three-minute) elevator pitches about their project to the class, using storyboards. Then they receive feedback from the class, guided by carefully structured questions from Erin, such as, “Is the app presented socially useful?” Students then reflect on the feedback they have received, using it to guide what the next iteration of their proposed designs will look like. And when students finish their projects, Erin asks them to create a final document that describes the different iterations of their work, with an emphasis on the challenges they encountered and how they worked through them. Erin uses this reflection on iteration to understand students’ evolving comfort with perseverance and adaptability in response to challenges, which are necessary dispositions for engaging in open-ended projects in computer science and every other field.

Engage multiple perspectives

The majority of the 80 computing teachers in our study described the classroom learning community as essential to the success of student-directed projects. Similarly, researchers in many other fields have argued that the teacher should not be viewed as the sole audience for or judge of student work. Rather, classroom assessment should incorporate multiple perspectives. Feedback from a range of people (teachers, peers, parents, or others) increases the opportunities for students “to reflect on their learning and their learning needs” (Earl, 2012, p. 93). Additionally, when classroom peers offer feedback, the process can benefit everyone involved: Learning how to assess others’ work can inform students about what to look for in their own creations, helping them develop their ability to critically self-assess (Cennamo & Brandt, 2012; Mendonca & Johnson, 1994). Engaging with their peers’ work can also expose students to various solutions and strategies that they might not encounter otherwise (Sadauskas et al., 2013).

The teacher should not be viewed as the sole audience for or judge of student work.

For example, Erin knows that peers can serve as an authentic audience for students’ creations, so she makes sure learners have opportunities to get constructive feedback from other students. And to ensure that such exchanges are valuable, Erin developed a peer feedback guide to help learners understand both how to share their work and how to give one another useful comments. For instance, it offers advice on specific topics to consider when providing feedback (e.g., the clarity of the app’s purpose, its features, its aesthetic appeal) and how to structure that feedback (e.g., pointing out the features of the app that work well, highlighting one or two features that are confusing).

Erin asks students to keep this guide in mind while their classmates give 10-minute demonstrations and explanations of their projects. During the presentations, half the students sit with their laptops and share their projects with one person at a time. The students watching presentations listen carefully, take notes, ask clarifying questions, and then share their critiques. After rotating through several rounds of presentations, the two groups swap, and the students who have already presented now provide the feedback. Erin notes that this strategy engages everyone in the room: “There is no kid sitting in the back of the class finishing up their project, because they have a role just as much as the presenter. Throughout this whole thing, the presenter is getting continuous feedback.”

Cultivate capacity for personal judgment

While assessment is traditionally seen as something teachers provide to students, the computing teachers in our study tended to believe that the goal of assessment should be to develop learners’ autonomy, decreasing their dependence on teachers’ evaluations and increasing their own ability to exercise meaningful personal judgment and self-direction. This aligns with research from a range of disciplines, describing the ultimate goal of student assessment as the development of self-assessment skills (Ross, 2006; Sefton-Green & Sinker, 2000).

Put another way, researchers from many fields recommend a shift in perspectives: from focusing on the assessment of learning to seeing assessment as learning; not as a one-time judgment of students’ knowledge and skill but as a “personal, iterative, and evolving conversation” that helps students “make their own decisions about what to do next” (Earl, 2012, p. 45). When learners see assessment as part of their own growth and development, rather than as a performance for someone else to judge, they are “more likely to take risks, seek out challenges, and persevere in the face of difficulty” (Beghetto, 2005, p. 259). These qualities are essential to student-directed projects, where learners need ownership over the work and the process of creating it, exercising judgment and flexibility in navigating open-ended tasks.

For Erin, promoting her students’ autonomy is prompted not only by deeply felt pedagogical values but also by practical considerations. Erin wants her students to have constant feedback as they are working on their projects, but the time that she can spend with each learner is limited. Thus, she creates daily opportunities for students to reflect on their work in writing. Erin notes that having students self-assess daily mimics real-world work, where learners will have to be able to judge for themselves what is and is not working and how to adjust. But beyond practical considerations, her desire to make learners what she calls “participants in the process” of assessment is grounded in core values that she wants to convey to students about who they are and the importance of their contributions. Speaking about what informs her classroom learning design, Erin explains:

When we engage them and make this a place they can succeed, it goes so far beyond the actual content. It basically says, “You belong, you have a right to be here, and you have a right to expect a lot from the world. You have great skills and ideas, and the world needs you.”

Difficulties and possibilities

Despite continued enthusiasm about the value of learning through student-directed projects, multiple barriers have limited the widespread incorporation of such activities in K-12 classrooms. Some scholars have noted the need for new forms of teacher development (Grossman et al., 2019) and a rethinking of the underlying grammar of schooling to enable teachers to provide students with these kinds of open-ended, personally meaningful experiences (Mehta & Fine, 2019). Our conversations with teachers have shown that assessment can also be a significant challenge, but we hope these four principles — recognizing individuality, illuminating process, engaging multiple perspectives, and cultivating capacity for personal judgment — can help teachers in all disciplines to incorporate student-directed work into their classrooms.

Researchers from many fields recommend a shift in perspectives: from focusing on the assessment of learning to seeing assessment as learning.

In the context of our own field, computer science education, we acknowledge both the difficulty of  assessing student-directed projects and the possibilities for such assessment. On one hand, computer programming makes aspects of the learning process visible — it’s easy for students to examine each other’s lines of code and to solicit feedback from multiple audiences by sharing work via digital platforms. On the other hand, computer science has strong cultural traditions of didactic teaching and of learning as an accumulation of predefined skills and knowledge, and these traditions work against the embrace of individuality, process, multiple perspectives, and self-direction. While each discipline will navigate these contextual issues in its own way, we benefited enormously from learning about assessment practices in other disciplines that share a commitment to supporting open-ended and personally meaningful work. Reciprocally, no matter the content area, we hope these assessment principles can inspire and support more teachers in designing for learning through student-directed projects, creating opportunities for young learners to imagine themselves and their contributions to the world in new ways.

Note: This research was supported by Google, through CS-ER Grant No. 93661905.

Beghetto, R.A. (2005). Does assessment kill student creativity? The Educational Forum, 69 (3), 254-263.

Blikstein, P. (2018). Pre-college computer science education: A survey of the field . Google LLC.

Brennan, K. (2015). Beyond right or wrong: Challenges of including creative design activities in the classroom. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 23 (3), 279-299.

Brocato, K. (2009). Studio based learning: Proposing, critiquing, iterating our way to person-centeredness for better classroom management. Theory Intro Practice, 48 (2), 138-146.

Cennamo, K. & Brandt, C. (2012). The “right kind of telling”: Knowledge building in the academic design studio. Educational Technology Research and Development, 60 (5), 839-858.

Earl, L.M. (2012). Assessment as learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student learning . Corwin Press.

Eisner, E.W. (2004). What can education learn from the arts about the practice of education? International Journal of Education & the Arts, 5 (4).

Grossman, P., Dean, C.G.P., Kavanagh, S.S., & Herrmann, Z. (2019). Preparing teachers for project-based teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 100 (7), 43-48.

McGuinness, C. & Brien, M. (2007). Using reflective journals to assess the research process. Reference Services Review, 35 (1), 21-40.

Mehta, J. & Fine, S., (2019). In search of deeper learning: The quest to remake the American high school . Harvard University Press.

Mendonca, C.O. & Johnson, K.E. (1994). Peer review negotiations: Revision activities in ESL writing instruction. TESOL Quarterly, 28 (4), 745-769.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021). Cultivating interest and competencies in computing: Authentic experiences and design factors . The National Academies Press.

Orr, S. (2010). Collaborating or fighting for the marks? Students’ experiences of group work assessment in the creative arts. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35 (3), 301-313.

Ozaki, C.C., Worley, D., & Cherry, E. (2015). Assessing the work: An exploration of assessment in the musical theatre arts. Research & Practice in Assessment, 10 (Summer 2015), 12-29.

Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas . Basic Books.

Richards, R. (2010). Everyday creativity: Process and way of life — Four key issues. In J.C. Kaufman & R.J. Sternberg (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of creativity (pp. 189-215). Cambridge University Press.

Robinson, M. & Ellis, V. (2000). Writing in English and responding to writing. In J. Sefton-Green & R. Sinker (Eds.), Evaluating creativity: Making and learning by young people (pp. 79-97). Routledge.

Ross, J.A. (2006). The reliability, validity, and utility of self-assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 11 (1), Article 10.

Sadauskas, J., Tinapple, D., Olson, L. & Atkinson, R. (2013). CritViz: A network peer critique structure for large classrooms. In J. Herrington, A. Couros & V. Irvine (Eds.), Proceedings of EdMedia 2013 — World Conference on Educational Media and Technology (pp. 1437-1445). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.

Sefton-Green, J. & Sinker, R. (Eds.). (2000). Evaluating creativity: Making and learning by young people . Routledge.

Taggart, G.L., Phifer, S.J., Nixon, J.A., & Wood, M. (Eds.). (1999). Rubrics: A handbook for construction and use . Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Zhang, F., Schunn, C.D., & Baikadi, A. (2017). Charting the routes to revision: An interplay of writing goals, peer comments, and self-reflections from peer reviews. Instructional Science, 45 (5), 679-707.

This article appears in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of  Kappan,  Vol. 103, No. 4, pp. 44-48.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Karen Brennan

KAREN BRENNAN is an associate professor of education in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.

Sarah Blum-Smith

SARAH BLUM-SMITH is a doctoral candidate in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.

Paulina Haduong

PAULINA HADUONG is a doctoral candidate in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.

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Promoting Student-Directed Inquiry with the I-Search Paper

About this Strategy Guide

The sense of curiosity behind research writing gets lost in some school-based assignments.  This Strategy Guide provides the foundation for cultivating interest and authority through I-Search writing, including publishing online.

Research Basis

Strategy in practice, related resources.

The cognitive demands of research writing are numerous and daunting.  Selecting, reading, and taking notes from sources; organizing and writing up findings; paying attention to citation and formatting rules.  Students can easily lose sight of the purpose of research as it is conducted in “the real world”—finding the answer to an important question.

The I-Search (Macrorie, 1998) empowers students by making their self-selected questions about themselves, their lives, and their world the focus of the research and writing process.  The strong focus on metacognition—paying attention to and writing about the research process methods and extensive reflection on the importance of the topic and findings—makes for meaningful and purposeful writing.

Online publication resources such as blogging software make for easy production of multimodal, digital writing that can be shared with any number of audiences.

Assaf, L., Ash, G., Saunders, J. and Johnson, J.  (2011).  " Renewing Two Seminal Literacy Practices: I-Charts and I-Search Papers ."  English Journal , 18(4), 31-42.

Lyman, H.  (2006).  “ I-Search in the Age of Information .”  English Journal , 95(4), 62-67.

Macrorie, K. (1998).  The I-Search Paper: Revised Edition of Searching Writing .  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook.

• Before introducing the I-Search paper, set clear goals and boundaries for the assignment.  In some contexts, a completely open assignment can be successful.  In others, a more limited focus such as research on potential careers (e.g., Lyman, 2006)  may be appropriate.
• Introduce the concept of the I-Search by sharing with students that they will be learning about something that is personally interesting and significant for them—something they have the desire to understand more about.  Have students generate a list of potential topics.
• Review student topic lists and offer supportive feedback—either through written comments or in individual conferences—on the topics that have the most potential for success given the scope of the assignment and the research resources to which students will have access.
• After offering feedback, have students choose the topic that seems to have the most potential and allow them to brainstorm as many questions as they can think of.  When students have had plenty of time to ponder the topic, ask them to choose a tentative central question—the main focus for their inquiry—and four possible sub-questions—questions that will help them narrow their research in support of their main question.  Use the I-Search Chart to help students begin to see the relationships among their inquiry questions.
• Begin the reflective component of the I-Search right away and use the I-Search Chart to help students  write about why they chose the topic they did, what they already know about the topic, and what they hope to learn from their research.  Students will be please to hear at this point that they have already completed a significant section of their first draft.
• Engage reader’s attention and interest; explain why learning more about this topic was personally important for you.
• Explain what you already knew about the topic before you even started researching.
• Let readers know what you wanted to learn and why.  State your main question and the subquestions that support it.
• Retrace your research steps by describing the search terms and sources you used.  Discuss things that went well and things that were challenging.
• Share with readers the “big picture” of your most significant findings.
• Describe your results and give support.
• Use findings statements to orient the reader and develop your ideas with direct quotations, paraphrases, and summaries of information from your sources.
• Properly cite all information from sources.
• Discuss what you learned from your research experience.  How might your experience and what you learned affect your choices or opportunities in the future.
• At this point, the research process might be similar to that of a typical research project except students should have time during every class period to write about their process, questions they’re facing, challenges they’ve overcome, and changes they’ve made to their research process.  Students will not necessarily be able to look ahead to the value of these reflections, so take the time early in the process to model what reflection might look like and offer feedback on their early responses.  You may wish to use the I-Search Process Reflection Chart to help students think through their reflections at various stages of the process.
• Support students as they engage in the research and writing process, offering guidance on potential local contacts for interviews and other sources that can heighten their engagement in the authenticity of the research process.
• To encourage effective organization and synthesis of information from multiple sources, you may wish to have students assign a letter to each of their questions (A through E, for example) and a number to each of their sources (1 through 6, for example).  As they find content that relates to one of their questions, they can write the corresponding letter in the margin.  During drafting, students can use the source numbers as basic citation before incorporating more sophisticated, conventional citation.

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• Content is placed on appropriate, well-labeled pages.  The pages are linked to one another sensibly (all internal links).
• Images/video add to the reader’s understanding of the content, are appropriately sized and imbedded, and are properly cited.
• Text that implies a link should be hyperlinked.  Internal links (to other pages of the blog) stay in the same browser window; External links (to pages off the blog) open in a new browser window.
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This tool allows students to create an online K-W-L chart. Saving capability makes it easy for them to start the chart before reading and then return to it to reflect on what they learned.

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Directed Research

Guidelines for designing, proposing, and enrolling in directed research ccsre | updated may 2023.

Students may register for Directed Research units under the supervision of a CCSRE affiliated faculty member. Directed Research units offer students the opportunity to conduct original research under the supervision of a CCSRE Senior Lecturer, a CCSRE Associate Director, or a CCSRE Tenure-Line Faculty Affiliate. Over the course of the quarter, students must design and produce an original research project. Research projects vary greatly in scope and medium, but they should be produced in a field and a medium that the faculty advisor is able to evaluate and advise. 

Directed Research units must recognize students' personal research projects and initiatives. Reading and research assignments contained in the proposal must be specific to Directed Research units and may not overlap with the requirements of any other course. No more than 5 combined units of Directed Reading and Directed Research may be counted towards major or minor requirements in CCSRE (including Asian American Studies, etc). Note that Directed Research units may not be used, in part or in full, to compensate for or recognize administrative, teaching, or research labor that serves a Stanford faculty member, instructor, staff member, research initiative, or student group. 

Proposals for Directed Research in CSRE, ASIANAMST, CHILATST, NATIVEAM, or JEWISHST should be written in collaboration with the advising faculty member.  Proposals must be submitted to CCSRE Academic Programs by Week 8 of the quarter preceding the proposed Directed Research.  The CCSRE Academic Programs will review proposals and notify students and faculty advisors of the status of the proposal by Week 10. Once approved, the instructor of record is responsible for ensuring adherence to the submitted proposal and evaluating student work accordingly. 

Proposal Instructions 

Proposals should be 2-3 pages in length and must include:

• A narrative of how the Directed Research fits into the student's academic trajectory in CCSRE, including information about the student's preparation. 
• Desired unit count and an articulation of why the unit count is appropriate (note that each unit of credit must represent 3 hours of work weekly) 
• A research timetable, including readings, drafts, and intermediary deadlines as appropriate 
• A schedule of synchronous meetings with the faculty advisor (note that students and faculty members must plan to meet synchronously at least biweekly and must check in at least weekly) 
• A description of how the faculty advisor will assess the student's progress as well as the final research project
• Signature of the faculty advisor acknowledging commitment to the proposal, including the schedule of meetings and evaluation structure. 

Any revisions to the proposed schedule must be signed by both advisor and student and submitted to CCSRE Academic Programs in a timely manner. 

Proposals should be produced collaboratively by the student and faculty advisor and must be reviewed and signed by both parties before the submission deadline. 

PLEASE USE THIS FORM TO SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL

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S.J. Quinney College of Law

Directed Research and Directed Studies enable students to pursue a depth of knowledge in a discrete subject tailored to the professional and intellectual interests of the student.

A student may either (1) develop a thesis and research agenda, culminating in a significant academic research paper (Directed Research Project – Track 1); or (2) conduct research in conjunction with a faculty member without writing a significant academic research paper (Directed Studies Project – Track 2).

Directed Research – Track 1

Direct Research is appropriate for students interested in developing a thesis and research agenda culminating in a significant academic research paper. Directed Research Projects may be pursued on topics not regularly offered as a course in the College of Law, or on topics that the student wishes to pursue in greater depth than course coverage would ordinarily permit.

Directed Research Project Guidelines:

• Students must engage in Legal research, empirical research, and/or substantial tutorial discussion; and produce one or more substantial and scholarly works.
• A Directed Research Project may be used to satisfy the Seminar Paper requirement when the Project is graded, approved as a Seminar substitute, and otherwise fulfills all requirements for a Seminar Paper.

Directed Research Credit Hour Requirements:

• Students must register for at least one, but no more than three, credit hours per Directed Research Project.
• Students may not register for more than one Directed Research Project per semester.
• A student may register for a two-semester Directed Research Project of up to six credit hours with a single project proposal.
• Subject to faculty and Associate Dean approval, Directed Research Projects may be graded or taken on a pass/fail basis. Directed Research Projects used to satisfy the Seminar Paper requirement must be graded.
• Students may not count more than six credit hours of Directed Research, Directed Studies, or a combination of those two toward graduation.
• Students must complete approximately 50 hours of work for each Directed Research credit hour.

Directed Research Limitations:

• A Directed Research Project may not be used as a substitute for a regularly offered course the student has not taken, even if the course is full.
• Directed Research may not be used as a mechanism for teaching or research assistance absent independent educational value to the student.
• A Directed Research Project may not fulfill the College of Law experiential requirement or consist primarily of skills-based work.

Direct Research Registration:

• The student must identify a full-time faculty member who will oversee their Directed Research Project; and
• Submit the Directed Research & Studies form .

Once the Directed Research & Studies form has been submitted, it will be forwarded to the supervising faculty member and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for approval. Once approved, the Registrar will enroll the student.

Directed Studies – Track 2

Directed Studies is appropriate for students who desire to explore a particular aspect of a subject while learning research skills, but without completing a significant academic research paper.

Directed Studies Project Guidelines:

• Directed Studies Projects may be pursued on topics not regularly offered as a course in the College of Law, or on topics the student wishes to pursue in greater depth than course coverage would ordinarily permit.
• Directed Studies Projects may be on topics for which the supervising faculty member conducts research or produces scholarship, including research conducted with a faculty member.

Directed Studies Credit Hour Requirements:  

• Students must register for at least one, but no more than two, credit hours per Directed Studies Project.
• Directed Studies Projects may not satisfy the Seminar Paper requirement.
• Directed Studies Projects must be taken on a pass/fail basis.
• Students should complete approximately 50 hours of work for each Directed Studies credit hour.

Direct Studies Registration:

• The student must identify a full-time faculty member who will oversee their Directed Studies Project; and

Once the Directed Research & Studies form has been submitted, it will be forwarded to the supervising full faculty member and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for approval. Once approved, the Registrar will enroll the student.

Fill out the application »

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Directed Research - Sign Up Instructions

• Only full-time faculty can supervise Directed Research. This includes full-time tenured/tenure-track, research, and teaching faculty.
• You must personally contact the full-time Computer Science faculty member with whom you wish to do directed research.  Use the CS Faculty Directory and Research Areas & Labs listings to find full-time faculty members whose research matches your interests.
• After gaining permission from a full-time Computer Science faculty member, you will need to fill out the online application at: http://myviterbi.usc.edu under "Directed Research" to request clearance to enroll in the course.

B.S. Students: Choose CSCI 490 only. M.S. Students: Choose CSCI 590 only. Ph.D. Students: Choose CSCI 790 only.

The number of units for Directed Research is determined between you and your chosen instructor.

• Once you complete the application, your selected research supervisor will receive an automated email and they must approve your project via the online application system.
• Do not fill out the online application until you have received permission to do so from a full-time Computer Science faculty member.
• After the full-time faculty member approves your application, the department will approve the project and issue d-clearance within one week.

Directed Research FAQ

Graduate Students: No.   CSCI 590 and CSCI 790 Directed Research is credit or no credit.  It is not graded.  You can only earn units toward the degree. Undergraduate Students: Yes. You are assigned a letter grade for CSCI 490 Directed Research.  It counts toward your GPA and you earn units toward your degree, typically these are technical elective units.

Students who began in Spring 2017 and earlier: A maximum combination of 4 units of CSCI 590 Directed Research and ENGR 596 Internship can be used toward the M.S. program. Students who began in Fall 2017 and later: A maximum combination of 2 units of CSCI 590 Directed Research and 2 units of CSCI 591 Research Colloquium can be used toward the M.S. program.  Internships do not count for credit in the M.S. Program.

M.S. students can only take a 1-2 unit Directed Research.  A maximum of 2 units can be taken for credit toward the M.S. degree, so you can either take 1 unit of CSCI 590 twice, or do the course once for 2 units.  The number of units should be something that you discuss with your Professor and Advisor. Undergraduate students should consult with their Professor regarding the appropriate number of units. Keep in mind that 3 units of research is roughly supposed to be the same amount of time as a 3 unit class. Typically, each unit represents an hour of class time and two hours of outside-of-class study time.  So, a student taking a 3 unit Directed Research could expect to spend about an average of 9 hours per week on the course.  A student taking a 4 unit Directed Research could expect to spend an average of about 12 hours per week on the course.

Published on June 14th, 2016

Last updated on February 6th, 2023

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Research, Thesis & Directed Studies

Below are brief explanations for undergraduate students regarding research, directed/independent studies, and writing a thesis within the Department of Economics. Scrolling to the bottom you’ll see a short list of FAQ’s that undergraduate students ask. 

Please review this online information before meeting with Economics Academic Advisors. Please meet with an Economics Academic Advisor before talking to your Professor or TA about research, directed studies, or thesis in Economics.  

Find Academic Advising

• Explore Research Beginnings
• Directed Studies & Thesis
• Honors in the Major

Opportunities to research with accomplished professors, fellow classmates, and established research centers drive students to perform academically at a high level. Research at UW with the Economics Department can be pursued in various ways. One way is a student working on their own research inquiry with professor oversight. Another more elite track would be working with a professor on their research. A third way is through the Honors in the Major route within Economics. More information about Honors can be found below. Regardless of the path chosen, achieving top marks in advanced classes will help to obtain on-campus, competitive research opportunities. 

Bear in mind that, while research opportunities are incredible experiences that students successfully pursue, research is considered a supplementary benefit to an undergraduate education from UW-Madison. Research is not required, nor is it expected of any undergraduate graduating with an economics major.

This worksheet is designed to be a guideline for students to gauge their interest in research. Complete this worksheet and bring it to an advising appointment to discuss research with an advisor.

Is Economics Research for Me?

Directed Study, sometimes called Independent Study, as described in the undergraduate catalog, “offers the student an opportunity to work with a faculty member on an individual study program. A student who is stimulated by a particular concept or problem encountered in a course can pursue and develop that interest in depth through a directed study project. Such individualized study can make a valuable contribution to a student’s educational experience. Directed study courses are made available by departments on the basis of a student’s preparation and motivation and a faculty member’s willingness to accept the student in such an endeavor.”

Directed Study allows advanced students to explore in-depth topics that are not covered in the regular economics course offerings. Your course may be structured to award one to three credits and, in most cases, will require writing a paper on your research and findings. These parameters will be established together with a supervising faculty member. 

Directed Study enrollment class options are: 

• Economics 698 : credit/no credit grading (no GPA associated) 
• Economics 699 : graded basis using A-F scale (included in GPA)

If you wish to pursue Directed Study or Thesis  in Economics, you must:

• Be a junior or senior student majoring in Economics.
• Complete the intermediate courses in microeconomics and macroeconomics.
• Prepare a research proposal and/or reading list, to use in discussion with an Economics Faculty member 
• Obtain approval from a member of the Economics faculty to supervise your project. Ideally, this will be a faculty member with whom you are familiar and who has expertise related to your desired area of study.
• Have a GPA of 3.0 in Economics coursework completed to date.
• Complete the department’s Directed Study form . Once the form is completed and signed by the instructor, return it to the Economics Undergraduate Office. The staff will create the course for you, allowing you then to enroll via standard university procedures.

Senior thesis or senior honors thesis students must follow these same enrollment instructions. However, your class enrollment options are: 

• Econ 691-692 : full year thesis for non-Econ-honors students 
• Econ 581 : one semester senior honors thesis. For EconME Honors students only 
• Econ 681-682 : full year senior honors thesis. For EconME Honors students only

If you want to write a one semester thesis as a non-Econ-honors student, you will enroll in a Directed Study, 698 or 699. 

By participating in a directed study or senior thesis course, students consent to having their finished paper or project archived by the Economics Department and made available on request. Upon completion of the course, students must email a copy of their finished paper or project to [email protected] for this purpose.

Please note that these class options are intended to allow advanced academic exploration by independently motivated students. Directed Studies or Theses are not intended as a means to bolster deficiencies in credits or GPA, and it does not count toward fulfilling the department’s Core Econ Electives requirement.

All questions and inquiries should go to [email protected] or set up an appointment via Starfish with an Economics Academic Advisor. 

Directed Study or Senior Thesis

Part of the Honors in the Economics Major curriculum will be a requirement for you to complete a senior honors thesis, prepared by a research tutorial economics class, your senior year. If you are interested in pursuing Economics with the Math Emphasis, have potential PhD in Economics ambitions, are interested in delving into research- Honors in the Major could be right for you! Please see our Curriculum, Courses, and Requirements page for class details. 

Curriculum, Courses & Requirements

Students can earn the Honors designation for the major in Economics. This is called Honors in the Major (HoM).  To do so, all of the follow criteria must be met:

• Take the honors versions of the intermediate economic theory courses: Economics 311, Intermediate Microeconomic Theory-Advanced Treatment and Economics 312, Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory-Advanced Treatment. If you are a transfer student with credit already for Econ 301 and 302, or were otherwise prevented from taking Econ 311/312, please see an Economics Academic Advisor promptly. 
• Select and fulfill the requirements of the Economics with Mathematical Emphasis option. 
• Attain a cumulative GPA of 3.5 out of 4.0 in all courses in the major and an overall GPA of at least 3.3 in all courses taken at UW-Madison at the time of graduation.
• Complete Economics 580: Tutorial in Research Project Design. This is offered only in the spring semester.
• Execute a capstone experience. Complete either (a) or (b):

Capstone Option A : Find an economics professor mentor and enroll in either Economics 581, Honors Thesis (one semester), or Economics 681 and Economics 682, Honors Thesis (two semesters). Note: Economics 580 must be taken prior to writing the Senior Honors Thesis.

Capstone Option B : Alternative thesis work, to be discussed with an economics academic advisor. If you would like to talk to an academic advisor about pursuing honors in the major, you can learn more about how to talk to one of our academic advisors here !

Purdue Polytechnic Institute

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MS in Engineering Technology

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Thesis and Directed Project Resources

This page includes information and linked resources for completing your research and development for your thesis or directed project. There are several deadlines students must meet in order to graduate, please check the Graduate School's Calendar for important dates. 

Thesis and Directed Project Format Checklist -- this is a link to a compilation of formatting requirements for a thesis or directed project report. Following this checklist can minimize the risk of the Purdue Graduate School rejecting your thesis for deposit (which would delay your graduation until at least the next semester).

Templates and Tools

When writing your thesis or direct project, you must follow very specific Purdue and SoET standards.  Theses and directed projects follow the same structure and formatting rules. To help you conform to Purdue and SoET standards, use the following Word or LaTEX template. 

Microsoft Word Templates for Theses (also to be used for Directed Project Reports) -- Please note that these Graduate School templates may or may not include two important front matter sections required in all theses and direct project reports. These sections are LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS and GLOSSARY, to immediately precede the ABSTRACT section. Depending on when you took TECH 64600, the GLOSSARY will replace what used to be a Definitions subsection in Chapter 1.

LaTeX Instructions for Theses -- Some students (and graduate faculty) prefer to use LaTeX to format their thesis or directed project (instead of Microsoft Word ).  It is STRONGLY suggested you use LaTeX.  Engineering Technology students should NOT use the LaTeX template provided on the Graduate School's website. Instead, they should use the attached template . 

APA Son of Citation Formatting App --this web application may prove useful for correctly formatting APA-style citations for your thesis or directed project. Please note that the application is not aware of proper nouns and acronyms. Thus, you will still need to capitalize the first letter of proper nouns, as well as full acronyms.

APA Style Tips -- Need a refresher on APA formatting and styles? This is a direct link to their web site.

Services for Research, Theses, and Directed Projects

Institutional Review Board (IRB) -- The IRB provides mandatory review of research protocols that involved humans. This includes surveys conducted by many graduate students as part of their research. Any graduate student research requiring the use of humans for data collection and reporting requires IRB pre-approval; before you conduct the survey.

Qualtrics  -- Qualtrics is a web-based survey software available for use by all Purdue Faculty, Students and Staff to support teaching and research at Purdue. Surveys can be created and distributed by anyone with a career account. Be aware that surveys may require approval from the IRB because they implement research protocols that involve humans.

Statistical Consulting Service (SCS) -- The Department of Statistics provides statistical software and design consulting services for the University community – free of charge.  The Statistical Consulting Service can help you with statistical software problems and data analysis issues.  Statistical Software Consulting provides assistance with the set up and running of a wide variety of statistical computing programs, including SAS, SPSS, Minitab and S-Plus. Software consulting is available in MATH G175 on a drop-in basis.  Experimental Design and Data Analysis Consulting is available during the Fall, Spring and Summer semesters.  Services include assistance with all phases of research projects: proposal preparation, design of studies, survey design, data input strategies, data import/export, analysis of data, interpretation of results, presentation of results, and other statistics or probability problems.

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)  -- this is a link to Purdue's acclaimed Online Writing Lab (OWL) which can be very helpful to students with less than satisfactory writing skills. The web site also provides links into APA formatting expectations.

Google Scholar -- this is a link to a special Google search engine designed to find scholarly publications that have been appropriately reviewed or refereed by academic faculty. Such publications should be more credible than information discovered via Google's standard search engine.

Depositing Your Written Thesis 

After you have successfully defended your thesis, and made any required changes to your written thesis, and received all required approvals, you must still officially deposit your thesis.  You should familiarize yourself with the Purdue Thesis Deposit Process .  

Thesis and Directed Project Format Checklist

MS SOET Graduate Student Handbook

Graduate School Forms 

Department of Mathematical Sciences

• Directed Research
• Mathematics M.A.
• Guide for Students
• Program Requirements

A research project will be chosen, formulated, and executed by the student under the guidance of a faculty member. The project may investigate a mathematical sciences content or pedagogy topic. A final written report and presentation are required. MAT 5600 must be taken for a total credit of three semester hours.

Paperwork : Directed Research/Capstone Project Application - A qualtrix form (request the link from the program director) should be filled out after you identify your research mentor; once the form is approved by your mentor, you will need to complete the Special Course form  to request registration from the graduate school.

Goals  for the Research Project

The directed research project is designed to be a culminating experience for students in the MA in Mathematics, College Teaching concentration. The topic for the research project should be chosen in consultation with the faculty mentor and can be any topic related to content or pedagogy in the mathematical sciences, but all projects should provide evidence of:

• Depth of knowledge in an area of mathematical sciences content or pedagogy, and
• Utilization of the appropriate research methodologies for the content matter.

Students will produce a written document and present their work to members of the department. The specific format of the document and presentation will vary depending on the subject matter, but all will be reviewed vis-a-vis the following expectations. For help with formatting, please see the Mathematical Word Processing webpage.

Written Document

• The document is well organized.
• The document is professionally typeset, with careful attention to mathematics formatting, citations and references.
• The level of exposition is appropriate for the expected audience of seniors, graduate students, faculty, and/or other professionals.
• The style and grammar do not detract from the readability of the document.
• The author provides some general context/background for the work.
• The author's contribution to the work is clear.

Presentation

• The presentation is well organized.
• The level and pace of the presentation are appropriate for the expected audience of seniors, graduate students, faculty and/or other professionals.
• The presenter provides some general context/background for the work.
• The presenter's contribution to the work is clear.
• The presenter maintains composure when questioned.

Each student is required to present the results from his or her culminating project. The presentation should be 25-30 minutes, including time for questions.

The date of the presentation must be approved by the program directors and must be scheduled far enough in advance to allow at least one week's notice to the Department faculty and graduate students.

Note also that students presenting thesis research must meet the graduate school deadlines are well, typically 2 weeks prior to the last regular day of classes.

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• Non-Classroom Credits

Directed Research

How to register for directed research.

• Students must contact individual instructors and agree on a research project.
• Students may ask any full-time or visiting faculty member to supervise Directed Research.  A student who would like to have an adjunct faculty member supervise their Directed Research must submit a proposal to their program office to request permission from Vice Dean Randy Hertz.
• Student Name
• Semester you are adding or dropping course(s) Fall 2021 or earlier semesters
• Course Credits
• Total credits for the semester after you add/drop course(s)
• Course Faculty           NOTE: Please select TBA faculty if the desired faculty name is not part of the drop-down menu
•  Course Title/ Course Number:| (i.e. Directed Research Option A/ LAW-LW. 10737) or                                       (i.e. Directed Research Option B/ LAW-LW.12638)
• The written proposal must be at least 1,000 words and should describe the subject matter of the Directed Research and the issues the student intends to explore in the paper.  All students must state in the proposal how many credits the Directed Research should be for and JD students must state if the paper is for the Option A or Option B writing requirement. JD students, please review the Substantial Writing Requirements webpage for more information on Option A and Option B.
• Students considering a 3-credit Directed Research should contact their program office by submitting an "Add" form via the Law Registrar's Service Desk with their faculty-approved proposal attached. A three-credit Directed Research project is highly unusual and requires the approval of Vice Dean Randy Hertz. To justify a third credit, a DR project must involve major dimensions of research and writing that make the project a scholarly endeavor that substantially exceeds a traditional Directed Research.
• Late requests to add a Directed Research will only be considered if your credit load (not including the Directed Research credits) does not drop below the minimum 12 credits at any point in the semester after the add/drop period.
• Students who are granted permission to late add Directed Research will not be permitted to drop classes if the result is inconsistent with the above.

Other Considerations 

• Failure to make academic progress on a Directed Research may result in a student’s withdrawal with a grade of “WD.” See Grading System and Academic Standards .
• See JD Program Requirements for non-classroom credit caps on Directed Research.
• While Directed Research does not count toward classroom credit, it does count toward the 52 required full-time faculty credits for the JD degree if it is supervised by a full-time faculty member.
• After March 15 of the student’s final semester , no faculty member may accept a request from a student to perform directed research or other work for law school credit unless the student has first received the approval of Vice Dean Randy Hertz.  Students must send their petitions to their program office, not to Dean Hertz.

The Vice Dean may allow such work if the student needs the credit for May graduation and July bar certification subject to the following:

• ​No more than two (2) credits can be earned in this matter
• In making his or her decision, the Vice Dean shall consider (a) the date of the student's request; (b) the nature of the proposal; and (c) whether the missing credits or the timing of the student's request are the result of circumstances that were within the student's ability to avoid. Failure of the student to properly calculate his or her credit at an earlier time, failure in a course, and removal from a course for excessive absences are examples of circumstances within the student's control to avoid. 
• If the missing credits result from circumstances outside the student's control, the Vice Dean will permit the credit if at all academically reasonable. 
• If the Vice Dean approves the student's application, it will be the student's responsibility to find a faculty member willing to supervise the student's proposed work and award the credit in a timely matter. 

© 2024 New York University School of Law. 40 Washington Sq. South, New York, NY 10012.   Tel. (212) 998-6100

• Open access
• Published: 14 May 2024

Designing for student autonomy combining theory and clinical practice – a qualitative study with a faculty perspective

• Charlotte Silén 1 ,
• Katri Manninen 1 , 2 &
• Angelica Fredholm 1 , 3  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  532 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

41 Accesses

Metrics details

Although extensive research exists about students’ clinical learning, there is a lack of translation and integration of this knowledge into clinical educational practice. As a result, improvements may not be implemented and thus contribute to students’ learning. The present study aimed to explore the nature of clinical faculty members’ learning related to how they apply research about student autonomy.

A course, “Designing learning for students’ development of autonomy in clinical practice” was conducted for faculty responsible for students’ clinical education. Within the frame of the course the participants designed a project and planned how they would implement it in their clinical context. Fourteen clinical faculty members participated in the study. The participants’ interpretation of the educational intervention, which combines complex theory with the equally complex clinical practice, was explored by studying how the participants’ approaches and understanding of the facilitation of autonomy were manifested in their projects. The projects in the form of reports and oral presentations were analyzed using qualitative content analysis together with an abductive approach.

One identified domain was “Characteristics of the design and content of the projects”. This domain was signified by two themes with different foci: Preparing the soil for facilitating student autonomy ; and Cultivating opportunities for students to actively strive for autonomy. A second identified domain, “ Embracing the meaning of facilitating autonomy ” was connected to participants understanding of theories underlying how to support the development of autonomy. This domain contained two themes: Connection between activities and autonomy is self-evident and Certain factors can explain and facilitate development of autonomy.

Education directed to strategic clinical faculty members to develop evidence-based approaches to student learning can be productive. To succeed there is a need to emphasize faculty members individual understanding of actual research as well as learning theories in general. Faculty trying to reinforce changes are dependent on their own mandate, the structure in the clinic, and recognition of their work in the clinical context. To achieve a potential continuity and sustainability of implemented changes the implementation processes must be anchored throughout the actual organization.

Peer Review reports

Clinical education is a comprehensive part of health care education programs and therefore important and vital for health care students to become knowledgeable well-educated professionals. Research on students’ clinical learning has been extensively reported but there is still a lack of translation and integration of this knowledge into clinical educational practice. This is a problem when trying to improve clinical training and there is a need to understand more of this matter. Hence, this study explores clinical faculty members’ learning related to how they apply research.

Introduction

The clinical environment offers a rich and powerful setting for learning and professional development [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. In the clinical environment, abstract knowledge becomes tangible through its application in patient care. Students’ encounters with patients and staff representing their own and other professional groups provide unique experiences to reflect on and integrate in their learning. They can train and test their skills, observe, and examine patients, and provide care and treatment. Generalizable knowledge about diseases and their impact on people’s lives can be realized in each patient encounter. The variation that every patient encounter and personal experience offer enhances this knowledge. Learning in every encounter is not only related to the clinic as a physical place per se, but to relationships and experiences relating to this encounter [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. As such, the clinic and the activities that occur in the clinic offer an inherent space for learning. This learning space provides contact with the reality of future professions, provides challenges, motivational factors, and feedback on behavior and thoughts. In this way, knowledge and professional development increases [ 2 , 3 , 7 , 8 ].

Crucial aspects of creating and taking care of the rich opportunities for students’ learning are linked to the clinical environment, clinical supervisors and other stakeholders involved in the organization and implementation of clinical education. Responsible actors must engage, understand and be able to apply knowledge about how to support student learning to contribute to development. There is extensive research available regarding how to make the clinical learning environment fruitful for learning and to support students to reach their learning goals, while becoming well educated and well-functioning professionals (cf. [ 2 , 3 , 4 ], [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]).

However, several researchers point out that there is a lack of translation and integration of research-based knowledge into educational practice in the clinic [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. This means that the main problem is not a lack of knowledge about student learning in the clinic, but the issue is why available research-based knowledge is not sufficiently applied. The complex nature of healthcare, the many faculty members involved, the lack of continuity related to education, and the fact that the education takes place in two different arenas – the university and the clinic – may explain some of the hindrances [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. A major challenge in the development of health-care education is reaching and motivating faculty members to enhance their knowledge on how to improve student learning. This is especially true for faculty members involved in clinical education since their role mainly focuses on patient care and not on student education [ 12 , 13 ]. There is an expressed need for research illuminating how further professional development for faculty members can lead to improvement of clinical education [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. In particular, studies are needed to examine the connection between the individual clinical faculty member and their application of knowledge in the clinical context. A more in-depth understanding of these connections is paramount to support clinical faculty members to integrate research and thereby enhance student learning.

In the present study, an educational intervention directed to faculty responsible for students’ clinical education was designed, executed, and studied. The intervention sought to improve how clinical faculty understand and apply research regarding what may influence and stimulate student autonomy in clinical education. In connection with the educational intervention, a study was carried out that aimed to examine faculty learning in terms of integration of theoretical knowledge in the clinic. The findings were meant to contribute to the understanding of how to support clinical faculty members to apply educational research on autonomy and thus enhance learning and consequently professional development for students in the clinic.

Autonomy and professional development

Development of autonomy is known to be crucial for student learning and professional development in the clinical setting. This concept was therefore chosen as the core of the intervention and this study. Nevertheless, autonomy is a complex concept, and its meaning is not possible to cover fully in the context of this study. The most fundamental aspects deemed important for this study will be presented below.

According to substantial research, autonomy is a fundamental need to experience self-governance and ownership of one’s actions [ 3 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Development of autonomy in learning is the foundation of life-long learning, meaning the ability to move on, constantly reevaluate your own knowledge, ability to obtain and use information, and understanding of your learning processes [ 18 , 19 , 24 ]. Studies about promoting self-directed and/or self-regulated learning have shown the importance of taking into account factors such as student motivation, experience of control, ability to seek and apply knowledge, ability to discern learning needs and ability to evaluate the outcome of learning [ 18 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. Clinical practice needs autonomous health care providers, and here autonomy means something more than independence and control over your own learning. It has been shown that autonomy fosters personal identity and meaning, independent choices, responsibility, and critical thinking [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Important for professional competence is the ability to discern, assess, and pose new questions in unclear and incalculable situations [ 23 , 24 ]. Research shows how a curriculum designed to strengthen autonomy can create a qualitatively different understanding of a subject or professional field, as demonstrated in student’s ability to link theory and practice with abstract thinking [ 22 , 24 ].

In this study autonomy has been particularly connected to the meaning of authenticity and attachment. These concepts are identified as important parts of autonomy related to learning and professional development [ 2 , 3 , 22 , 28 , 29 ]. The rationale for this statement is outlined below. Autonomy is connected to authentic experiences in clinical training. It is also indicated that transformative learning processes that contribute to the development of a professional identity can be triggered by authentic experiences and the meaning-making of these processes [ 3 , 28 ]. Manninen et al. [ 29 ] showed how authenticity in clinical education functions as a driving force for learning by creating meaning and relevance. Furthermore, Manninen [ 2 , 29 ] has identified how authenticity can be both an external and an internal phenomenon, where external authenticity is produced by education and the surrounding environment – such as the interaction with patients in a clinical setting. Internal authenticity is experienced when students form mutual relationships with patients, feel a sense of belonging and perceive themselves as part of the team [ 2 , 29 ]. Levett-Jones & Lathlean [ 30 ], stress the positive effects on learning that occur when students experience a sense of belonging in their clinical practice. These experiences of relationships and sense of belonging are captured in the concept of attachment and linked to the development of autonomy [ 3 , 28 ]. Students need to be offered participation as well as actively strive to attach themselves to the actual clinical context in order to experience authenticity and autonomy in their learning. Prerequisites for students to experience and to seek attachment are based on mutual trust and respect [ 31 , 32 ]. Several studies [ 3 , 21 , 22 , 28 , 29 ] showed how both autonomy and authenticity are social phenomena having to do with the relationships that students can form in their clinical education and the clinical relevance of given tasks. Thus, students can develop as autonomous professionals when they experience both external and internal authenticity. This includes opportunities to experience attachment and gain responsibility for relevant parts of patient care, as well as the opportunity to follow up on administered care [ 2 , 3 ]. Students need to have access to and responsibility for entire processes, such as being able to evaluate the results of care and not just isolated actions or events. This reasoning applies to students, regardless of the clinical placement level since the complexity and length of processes can vary [ 33 , 34 ].

Designing for learning in the clinic

To further professional development, the design of learning in the clinic should offer students opportunities to experience through emotion and action what it means to be a professional nurse, doctor, or physiotherapist, etc [ 35 ]. By doing so, the risk for a narrow and static approach to knowledge decreases, thus making it easier to focus on knowledge application and the complexity of professional knowledge. A comprehensive review of the literature by Trede et al. [ 36 ] shows that the development of a professional identity is facilitated by learning based on cooperation and dialogue in practice and characterized by authentic experiences. Education should be designed to raise awareness of what autonomy means in clinical education to enhance student learning and the development of a professional identity. In turn this demands that clinical faculty members understand the concept and can integrate it in clinical education. The clinical application of evidence-based concepts means the ability to combine concepts and theory with a complex clinical practice [ 12 , 14 , 16 , 17 ]. This is regarded as a challenge for faculty responsible for developing clinical education and supporting students in their learning.

For the purpose of this study, an educational intervention was designed to present, explain, and illuminate theory and research related to supporting students’ development of autonomy. The study reached out to participants working in strategic positions in different clinical settings that enabled them to contribute to the design and development of clinical education in collaboration with different universities and educational programs. The participants designed and planned the implementation of a project aimed at enhancing student autonomy in their clinical context. The aim of this study was to explore the nature of clinical faculty members’ learning related to how they apply research about student autonomy in their projects .

The research approach was qualitative, interpreting participants’ experiences from a life-world perspective. The interpretation of meaning and lived experience was made possible through the tradition of phenomenological hermeneutics founded by Heidegger and further developed by Gadamer and Ricouer [ 37 ]. It is argued here that the lifeworld is mediated through narratives where individuals’ subjective understanding and sense-making of their lifeworld become visible [ 38 ]. Thus, the individual projects portrayed and studied here are viewed as narratives that manifest understanding of the phenomena under examination, the meaning of which is revealed through interpretation.

Pedagogical framework for the intervention

The pedagogical framework described in the background regarding the development of autonomy and professional identity formed an important part of the content of the designed educational intervention and the present study. Additionally, the educational intervention was based on constructivist learning theories that emphasize active, creative processing of information, including cognitive, emotional, and social aspects as well as testing and practical actions (cf. [ 35 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]). In the applied pedagogical framework, the lifeworld is seen as the total sum of the environment and everyday experiences that forms the individual’s world, thus forming the basis for the individual’s interpretations, thoughts, reactions, and actions [ 43 ]. Learning was seen as fundamentally situated in a physical as well as social and cultural context [ 39 , 40 , 43 ].

The intervention, a course, “Designing learning for students’ development of autonomy in clinical practice”, was designed for health-care professionals responsible for students’ clinical practice in Stockholm County Council, or other participants with similar overarching clinical pedagogical work assignments. The relevant faculty role for this in Sweden is often an adjunct clinical lecturer (ACL) and this term will be used in the following description of the participants. They have their main employment and activities in the health care sector outside of a higher education setting and provide the university with specific expertise not found within the organization. The ACL supports both clinical supervisors and students at the clinical workplace, has the possibility to influence prerequisites for clinical education and functions as a bridge between the university and the local clinical education organization.

The intervention – “Designing learning for students’ development of autonomy in clinical practice.”

The purpose of the course that constitutes the intervention in the present study was to strengthen the pedagogical competence of the ACL for her/him to understand the meaning of research-based knowledge about learning, and how to apply this knowledge in clinical supervision and teaching. The goal was that the ACL should be able to contribute to and support students’ opportunities to develop autonomy in learning. The intervention was designed aiming to help ACLs understand research about how to facilitate autonomy in clinical practice. The intervention design was built on the pedagogical framework described above. In one extensive and concluding learning activity, participants designed and implemented projects aiming to enhance student autonomy in their clinical context. These projects constitute the focus for analysis in this study.

The course was given online and included 5 weeks full-time study. The online design was believed to enhance accessibility and enable adaptation to individual clinical contexts. It was spread over 6 months to allow time for the participants to process the content of the course and to plan and implement their projects. The course consisted of both asynchronous parts and synchronous meetings using Zoom. However, the online design of the course and the analysis of outcomes related to this design is not within the scope of this study. Two of the authors, (CS, AF) were responsible for the course and acted as lectures and tutors. Other experts were invited to the synchronous meetings giving lectures and participating in discussions. A digital learning platform was created, and the participants were divided into groups of 4–5 participants and one tutor, who worked together mainly asynchronous online. The groups were mixed in terms of professional background and the nature of their clinical workplace to learn from each other and provide a range of perspectives while working with different learning activities. The content of the course was focused on the meaning of autonomy in learning and its application in clinical practice for students. The participants worked individually with written tasks and communicated with their group members and the tutor. They were asked to build on their previous knowledge and experiences and actively apply new knowledge and thoughts. The tutor facilitated communication in the group by posing questions and commenting on the written work and discussions. All learning activities were designed to allow participants to discern the relevance and implications of theory in their own individual clinical context and describe this with concrete examples. The core concepts of autonomy, authenticity and attachment were presented in lectures online and discussed synchronously. These lectures were also available on the digital platform.

In one extensive and concluding learning activity, participants designed and implemented projects aiming to enhance student autonomy in their clinical context. Participants worked on the project throughout the course, from a preliminary project plan to implementation, and evaluation. The projects were discussed in their groups as well as individually with the tutor. The projects were presented as written reports and final oral presentations synchronously in zoom. In the written reports, they described the design, theoretical background, implementation, and outcome of the projects. For the oral presentations, participants were asked to focus on what they perceived as most meaningful in their projects and how they applied pedagogical knowledge and reasoning.

Participants

The course was open to all ACLs in the region. A written invitation to the course was spread through the regional network where ACLs are registered. A pedagogical course within higher education comprising at least 5 weeks full time study was required to take the course. The participants of the course were informed about the study and could volunteer to take part or not. There were 15 ACLs that took part in the course and fourteen of them participated in the study: seven registered nurses (five with postgraduate specialist nursing education), two radiology nurses, two biomedical analysts, one physician, one speech therapist and one occupational therapist. All participants were women, aged 36 to 63, with ACL experience from 1 to 13 years.

The context in which the study participants were active as ACLs mirrored the variations of the health-care field. Variations came to the fore related to in-patient and out-patient care, medical specialty and whether the unit offered a specialized service, such as a laboratory, radiology, or anesthesia at an operating department. The responsibilities and tasks of the ACLs were different. Some of them were responsible for students from one profession at various sites and others responsible for one unit and all students at that site. Others coordinated both supervisors and students within one unit, while others mainly acted as supervisors with a special assignment to act as an ACL at a specific site. The number of and kinds of students placed at the different units varied. In most cases, the ACLs were responsible for students from one profession and one educational level – undergraduate or postgraduate – but there were also examples involving several professions and different educational levels. The organization of the students’ clinical placements governed the ability for the ACL to plan activities. There were variations in the length of the placement and whether students stayed in one place or rotated between different departments. What could be designed to stimulate student autonomy depended on what the students were supposed to learn for their profession and on their educational level.

Data collection

As described above the participants’ projects were chosen as objects for analysis. Data were collected using the written and oral accounts of the projects that constituted the concluding learning activity in the course. There were 11 projects included in the data. Three of them were collaborative projects where participants worked together; in two cases in the same clinic and specialty, and in one case from two different hospitals but in the same clinical specialty. Written accounts in the form of project reports were used together with video- and audio-recorded oral presentations of the projects.

Data analysis

Based on the learning theories presented in the pedagogical framework for the intervention, the point of departure for the analysis was that ACLs showed what they had learned by planning and implementing projects in their own clinical setting with the aim of contributing to and supporting the students’ opportunities to develop autonomy. The application of the theory they had studied, i.e., the discernment of the meaning of the theory in the clinical context and in everyday practice, was made by the ACLs. Thus, it was the participants who expressed how they would use what they had learned to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

The participants’ learning was analyzed based on the written projects together with the oral presentation of these projects. An interpretative content analysis of both the manifest and latent content was performed [ 44 , 45 ]. The manifest content refers to data close to the expressions used by the participants, in this case the written and oral descriptions of the projects. The latent content refers to the authors’ interpretation of the meaning of what is expressed related to the development of autonomy. An abductive approach was also applied, and thus data were analysed iteratively going back and forth between parts and wholes, both inductively, and deductively informed of theoretical perspectives during the research process [ 46 ]. The theoretical foundation for analysis was the above-described concepts furthering the development of autonomy. The inductive part of the analysis aimed to contribute to new perspectives and a development of how these concepts can be interpreted.

Condensed meaning units were extracted in the written projects and the video- and audio- recordings and subsequently coded. The codes were compared for differences and similarities and grouped into categories describing variations in focus and approaches to support development of student autonomy. In the next step, categories were interpreted and designated as latent themes. The identification of manifest and latent content of the participants understanding of theories underpinning autonomy, was built on revisiting the condensed meaning units and codes with focus on critical features, the relationship between concepts and practice, and how concepts were connected [ 44 , 45 ]. Thus, one project can be represented in both themes and several of the categories. Examples illustrating the steps of the data analysis process are described in Appendix 1. Two of the authors (CS, AF) performed the basis of the analysis iteratively independently and together. Emphasis was put on reflexivity concerning preconceived interpretations related to the researchers’ involvement in the course. The preliminary findings were critically reviewed by the third author (KM), less involved in the course, and then discussed and negotiated between all the authors to achieve consensus. All authors have extensive knowledge and experiences of clinical education as teachers, clinical supervisors, and as experienced qualitative researchers in medical education. The researchers’ collaborative analysis was meant to contribute richness and credibility to the findings.

The analysis of the content and implementation of the participants’ projects is described in two domains. A: Characteristics of the design and content of the projects, and B: Embracing the meaning of facilitating autonomy. Domain A was related to the description of the projects based on who was engaged and the focus of the content of the implementation. The categories and themes related to domain A illustrate the outcome of learning in terms of how they organize activities to implement student autonomy. The basis for the categories and themes in domain B was the analysis of the meaning of the projects and how the participants talked about how to achieve autonomy. The findings in Domain B relate to the participants’ learning in terms of their understanding of how to apply the theories underlying the support for the development of autonomy. An overview of the findings is displayed in Fig.  1 . Quotes are presented with numbers of the participants and marked with oral account (oa) and written account (wa).

- Overview of findings

Domain A: Characteristics of the design and content of the projects

The way the participants designed and described their projects on how to support students’ development of autonomy in clinical practice varied. Two themes with different foci were identified; Preparing the soil for facilitating student autonomy; and Cultivating opportunities for students to actively strive for autonomy . The first theme comprised two categories; Engaging supervisors to support student autonomy and Emphasizing organizational dimensions that have an impact on implementation. The second theme was characterized by the two categories Activities involving students during significant parts of their clinical placement and Specific activities focused on certain knowledge and skills. The content of Domain A is illustrated in Table  1 .

Preparing the soil for facilitating student autonomy

Several participants chose to prepare the soil , that is, they utilized their knowledge of developing student autonomy to prepare the clinical practice environment for the students. Within this theme two categories were identified: Engaging supervisors to support student autonomy and Emphasizing organizational dimensions that have an impact on implementation. The first category focused on the supervisors, and the second took a broader approach, including the structural factors of the clinical placement, the supervisors’ role, and managers on different levels.

Engaging supervisors to support student autonomy

To reach the goal of fostering independence in students, the supervisors in the clinic were engaged by the ACLs. One approach within this category was to focus on support for supervisors by offering written plans, advice and thoughts on factors that have an impact on student independence in the clinic.

The documents written by the ACL varied between concise information sheets, and comprehensive plans on activities. The documents contained hints and advice about how supervisors should act to facilitate student independence. The supervisors’ responsibilities in relation to the students were also pointed out. A document could be created by the ACL, presented, and handed over to the supervisors to use. Other documents were authored by the ACL, presented, discussed, and adapted to the supervisors’ comments before they were finalized and used.

“In the meeting with the supervisors, we used time to discuss the guide (advice to the supervisors to support student autonomy). Many supervisors attended the meeting …we believe we have created a great participation” (No 12 and 13, oa).

Another example was a comprehensive operational plan aiming to develop a pedagogical framework for supervision that would increase the supervisors’ own confidence, allowing the students to practice autonomy in their professional role.

“The plan is that the supervisor guides the student from Active Observations, involves the student to Work Together, then invites the student to Take a Lead and finally Work Independently “ (No 1, wa).

The ACLs instructions to the supervisors differed. In some cases, the content of the documents was left for the supervisors to use as they saw fit, while other documents contained prompts on how to use it and how to act.

Follow ups of the content of the created documents and usefulness of the initiated guidance for the supervisors varied. In some cases, there were no systematic plans for follow up, while others discussed and revised the content of the document.

Another approach within the category of preparing the soil was signified by activities that process the meaning of and facilitation of autonomy. The aim of these activities was to stimulate reflection on factors affecting the development of autonomy to ensure continuation.

“To make the implementation [new activities] work, there is a need for careful and long-term planning ….it takes even more communication [ between different stakeholders ] …and it must be adapted to the students’ actual clinical placement” (No 8 and No 14, wa).

An activity taking the form of a workshop was characterized by the ACLs presenting what autonomy and factors stimulating student development might mean for the students.

“I created a workshop and gave a lecture about the concepts we had studied in the course – about how to facilitate autonomy…. I talked about attachment, trust, and authenticity and how that relates to autonomy” (No 10, oa).

One activity consisted of recorded lectures by the ACL combined with prepared tasks for the supervisors to complete. In the lectures, the different factors presented in the course that the ACLs had attended were presented. Through the tasks, the supervisors were encouraged to reflect on what these factors might mean for their students in their own clinical context. It was up to the supervisors to decide when they wanted to study the recorded material.

“The recorded lectures combined with tasks were meant to provide those responsible for the students in clinical practice knowledge about factors influencing students’ possibilities to reach autonomy during their placement……It would provide them with tools and ways of thinking to be able to change the organization of the clinical practice towards the goal of increased autonomy for students” (No 11, wa).

Emphasizing organizational dimensions that have an impact on implementation

In this category, the importance of considering organizational structures of both the health-care unit and the students’ clinical education when implementing measures to stimulate student autonomy were pointed out. The dimensions brought up and considered in the participants’ projects were the structure of the clinical practice, such as how responsibility of supervision was distributed, and the total number of students at the unit, but also the spread of students over a semester. The ACLs considerations included the duration of the placement, how and whether the students were rotating between different sections at the unit or stayed in one place. To enhance development of student autonomy, the idea of continuity in supervision was emphasized, and to maintain sustainability, managers on several levels were engaged in the planning, as were supervisors.

” We involved managers and administrative assistants in our planning…. administrative assistants plan supervisors’ work schedules and thus influence their work…. a pedagogical encounter was set up to engage them [ managers and administrative assistants ] in a pedagogical discussion…. We also created a group with supervisors from different departments of the clinic to discuss the project and the purpose of the idea of achieving continuity” (No 8 and No 14, wa).

Communication and cooperation with the university was stressed as crucial for whether the supervisors succeeded in facilitating student autonomy. There was an agreement among the ACLs in this category on the importance of including managers from different levels to succeed with the planned project.

” We contacted our manager and presented the project to her, and we contacted our administrative assistants and informed them about who the main supervisors were so that their shift work would not be affected” (No 4, oa).

Cultivating opportunities for students to actively strive for autonomy

In this theme, cultivating opportunities for students , another significant approach to use the knowledge of autonomy was identified. The ACLs planned activities directly to students to stimulate their development of autonomy. The theme consists of two categories: Activities involving students during significant parts of their clinical placement and Specific activities focused on certain knowledge and skills.

Activities involving students during significant parts of their clinical placement

Activities in this category were planned to capture multiple competences and were integrated throughout most of the practice period. A characteristic activity planned by the ACLs included in this category involved assignments that were identified and described for the specific students to complete in pairs.

“Learning activity: The students listen and observe a professional encounter with a patient. Afterwards they attend a workshop about how to document data in a patient’s chart…. The students work together and give each other feedback …. they are asked to go on working like this, writing on their own, discussing with each other and after that consulting the supervisor” (No 10, oa).

The planned activities were related to students’ vocational training and involved ideas about progression regarding students’ possibilities to act autonomously and the complexity of the assignment itself. Students trained different skills on their own and did not only watch their supervisors. They had to make choices between different actions, such as how to proceed in a certain situation, as well as judge when an assignment was finished and how it should be reported. Similar activities were also planned for other students without emphasis on peer learning. Instead, the supervisor continuously identified learning tasks for one student at a time, and thus independence was gradually required.

Variations could be noted in the ACLs approach to stimulating autonomy in these activities. In some cases, the learning tasks were planned in detail by the ACL and the training was limited to certain skills and behaviors. Other approaches were planned to continuously encourage the student to take responsibility and perform independently.

…the supervisors were encouraged to give students increased responsibility, e.g. by allowing them to be supervised by colleagues/other professions/other students and receive more assignments to solve themselves…. such as that they can develop a sense of autonomy in parallel with a sense of belonging with the whole health-care team and the workplace.” (No 10, wa).

Students’ reflections on their own performance were emphasized as important to stimulating development of autonomy. Sometimes, the reflection sessions were mainly about how the tasks had been carried out. In other cases, the students’ own perceptions about their progression towards autonomy were also important to discuss.

“The ACL met the student and the supervisor every week to reflect, based on a certain model. The core concepts of autonomy, authenticity, attachment, trust, and professional identity were discussed to evaluate whether the students felt that they experienced autonomy at the clinical placement. The students were asked to write in their logbook and their questions were discussed during the weekly reflection time.” (No 7, wa).

Specific activities focused on certain knowledge and skills

In this category, ACL’s planned projects contained learning tasks that focused on single skills completed at a specific time during the placement. The aim was to stimulate the development of autonomy in different ways connected to this learning task. A typical kind of activity was characterized by the ACL creating conditions for the students’ training but leaving the implementation to the students. These kinds of activities could be about connecting well-planned written tasks to common clinical issues for the patients who were cared for on the ward. The students could choose when to review the written tasks and how to perform them.

” It is difficult for students to feel attachment and ‘to be nurses’ on the ward when they are there for a short period of time, the patients are very ill, and they don’t have the right knowledge and skills to independently take care of them. I created written learning activities for students to work with on their own or together with other students…it meant that they could select a patient to talk to, search for knowledge and consider questions about a patient’s status and appropriate care” (No 5, oa).

Another activity took the form of a room prepared with equipment, offering opportunities for students to independently train important professional skills. The aim of this activity was to facilitate autonomy and critical thinking within postgraduate nursing specialist training.

“The students can practice together to supervise the monitoring and treatment of a simulated patient based on an authentic scenario. This means that they themselves lead the activity and must make important decisions and reflect on the outcome after a presentation of a project (No 2, oa).

Most activities planned by the ACLs focused on one profession at a time but there was one example targeting interprofessional learning. Interprofessional seminars were implemented for students to learn about other professions from their peers, and these seminars were followed up with reflections on what professional teamwork meant for the development of professional autonomy.

Domain B: Embracing the meaning of facilitating autonomy

The participants’ choices of design and the ways they described and talked about their projects also reflected a dimension of their learning related to their theoretical understanding of development of students’ autonomy. The analysis of the participants’ descriptions of how different factors facilitate and relate to the development of autonomy resulted in the outcome of two qualitatively different perceptions, here designated as two themes: Connection between activities and autonomy is self-evident and Certain factors can explain and facilitate development of autonomy. The first theme consists of one category: Lack of reasoning about the meaning of autonomy . In the second theme, two categories emerged: The concept of autonomy as a core value and Various factors are linked to the development of autonomy. The content of the domain is illustrated in Table  2 .

Connection between activities and autonomy is self-evident

One category denoted this theme, namely the lack of reasoning. The activities were described as facilitating autonomy, but there was no explanation for the underlying ideas of why the activities facilitated autonomy. One example is that a project was meant to introduce peer learning and activities for the students were thus described. These activities could involve students training skills on their own and they were asked to make their own decisions and discuss with their peers. However, there was no elaboration on how and why these activities were supposed to result in students becoming more autonomous. The relationship between activities and the ability to make choices and more independent decisions seemed to be taken for granted. Another example is the notion that activities directed at interprofessional education led to autonomy, which also was never explained.

“They develop autonomy as they see their own responsibilities as they are reflected in what other professions perform and are responsible for. It promotes their own professional development.” (No 9, wa).

Certain factors can explain and facilitate development of autonomy

The main qualitative difference between this theme compared to the first is that the participants explained and reasoned about how and why certain activities stimulated and led to independence. However, which factors that were brought up varied, as did the complexity of related explanations and reasoning.

The concept of autonomy as a core value

The level of understanding in this category was characterized by explanations and reasoning linked to the use of autonomy as an overarching concept. Here, an activity such as being asked to independently use a skill or to handle an encounter with a patient was chosen because this training would lead to student autonomy. When the project was introduced to supervisors or managers, the planned activities were mainly motivated by claiming that if students were given opportunities to act independently, it would foster autonomy in them. Factors brought up in the course as influencing development of autonomy were not used by the ACLs to elaborate on how to facilitate autonomy. They didn’t elaborate on any other factors brought up in the course as influencing the development of autonomy.

“When we thought about how to work with student autonomy, we decided to use peer learning. The students’ assignments are described, they work together, and the students take responsibility to carry them out. The students can stand on their own two feet… they are trusted” (No 6, oa).

Various factors are linked to development of autonomy

This category was characterized by an elaborate understanding of the meaning of autonomy and factors that have an impact on the development of autonomy. The ACLs reasoning about autonomy and other factors influencing autonomy was complex to a varying degree. Some participants explained and related their activities to one or more factors.

“…the students meet new supervisors very often, generally speaking every day… this leads to obstacles for student learning, and it makes it difficult to develop autonomy and authenticity. Both the students and the supervisors become ambivalent when they must create new relationships almost every day” (No 8 and No 14, wa).

Others reasoned about how different factors were interdependent and related to facilitation of autonomy in a broader sense.

From a guide for supervisors: … we think this is about attachment, the students are invited, and they have got a place when they arrive….and this next guiding advice is connected to trust… we trust the student that they know a lot, but it takes time to learn this new specialty. It is about autonomy too – that the students take responsibility and think for themselves… Some supervisors are very controlling, so the students don’t have the possibility to practice how to really be critical care nurses, so they don’t experience authenticity” (No 12 and No 13, oa).

We argued in the background that a hindrance for development of a rich learning environment in clinical education is that available research-based knowledge is not sufficiently applied [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. A way to face this problem is to enhance knowledge about how clinical faculty members understand and integrate theoretical knowledge in clinical practice. In this study we examined projects designed and implemented by clinical faculty members to find out how they, in this case, applied research about student autonomy in clinical education. The projects were the final part of a course introducing theories and research on the importance of students’ development of autonomy in clinical education. The purpose of describing and reasoning about these participants’ learning was to contribute to a deeper understanding of how to support clinical faculty to acquire and apply theoretical knowledge in clinical practice.

Two different domains mirroring the participants’ learning outcome were identified when their projects were analyzed. One domain concerned what they had decided to focus on to facilitate students’ development of autonomy and how they went about implementing their ideas in the clinic. The other identified domain involved the interpretation of the participants’ understanding of the theoretical framework underpinning autonomy as a concept. These findings expose different perspectives on how a course with a specific design directed at faculty members impacted their actions and understanding, i.e., the faculty members’ learning. The outcome of the course was encouraging in relation to the facilitation of student learning in clinical practice. All the participating ACLs projects contained activities and/or documents that involved some form of application of theories on how to facilitate student autonomy Some projects aimed to “prepare the soil”, such as educating supervisors and creating fertile ground for learning for the students. Another group of projects were planned directly for students, signified by “cultivating opportunities ” for them to practice autonomy through certain activities. Several studies have shown that the nature of clinical education is complex [ 12 , 14 , 16 , 17 ]. The students’ education takes place in two different arenas – the university and the clinic. Many faculty members are involved in clinical education, and their role mainly focuses on patient care and not on student education [ 12 , 13 ]. It became obvious that this complexity of clinical education influenced what the ACLs assessed possible to accomplish. This was mirrored in the choices that the ACLs made concerning the content and to whom they directed their projects. A comprehensive review of research on student learning in clinical practice found that issues about how to organize students’ learning were the most researched, indicating that organizational issues are an essential part of change [ 47 ]. The significant features of the health-care units in which the ACLs acted had a large impact on how they planned and implemented their projects. This underlines the importance of being familiar with the nature of context to introduce changes. The projects that were targeted supervisors, managers, and the organization presumably had an impact on a wider group of students compared to projects that were designed directly for a minor group of students or supervisors. This is important in relation to issues about sustainability. If faculty members on different levels in the clinic are engaged, ideas and knowledge about how to facilitate student learning can continue to develop and gain a foothold [ 14 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. Projects involving managers and system levels are far more likely to become sustainable [ 13 , 15 , 17 , 48 ]. The activities planned directly for students, and where the ownership of the ideas was closely linked to the ACLs, run the risk of being dependent on a limited group of faculty members, and may cease as soon as the person in charge is not there.

The variety of planned activities and documents created by the ACLs displayed comprehensive understanding, challenges and shortcomings related to the meaning of autonomy. Two qualitatively different levels of understanding of autonomy and how different factors facilitate and relate to the development of autonomy emerged [ 3 , 22 , 24 ]. One level of understanding relied on a presumed self-evident relationship between an activity and student autonomy. The other level of understanding involved explanations for how different factors, such as authenticity, trust, and belonging, relate to the development of autonomy. These differences in learning outcomes are very important to consider in faculty development. We claim that a level of understanding that includes the ability to discern the meaning of theory in the clinical context and in everyday practice, is necessary to support others, such as supervisors and students, and implement sustainable change. The understanding of a situation and the understanding of the phenomenon that gives this situation meaning are connected. According to Marton and Booth [ 24 ] a situation is understood based on the phenomena involved – and the phenomena are perceived in light of the specific situation. When viewed in relation to the participants’ projects this meant that the understanding of the theory could be seen in the choices the participants made regarding their projects, what they perceived as important issues, how they proposed to solve these issues, etc. From a variation theory perspective, this is viewed as a matter of discrimination and differentiation, and learning is seen as the ability to discern these differences [ 24 , 35 ]. The space for learning, therefore, is the potential variation or difference provided by the situation [ 24 , 35 ]. Opportunities to participate in continuing professional courses and forums for discussions between ACLs may support the development of a deeper understanding of theory when it is linked to clinical practice.

In the design of the course emphasis was placed on participants creating and implementing a project. What did that mean for their learning? Some projects were quite limited, as they sometimes only comprised one document, or when an activity only reached a small group of students or a minor group of supervisors. This can be a shortcoming, but it is possible that further development and successful implementation is more dependent on the properties of the document or activity related to theoretical understanding and the ACLs ability to identify meaningful problems. If an initiative is well substantiated, there will be more opportunities to build on it [ 35 , 43 ]. Some projects were broader, where several activities were planned to be repeated and continued over time and they engaged both supervisors and students. These projects carry a high potential for successful implementation and impact on supporting student learning, since continuity and engagement increases opportunities for faculty members to learn [ 17 , 35 , 50 ].

Above, we have discussed how the ACLs’ learning manifested itself in the participants’ projects and how that reflected their understanding of theories about learning processes, connected to development of autonomy. The group of ACLs is particularly interesting as they support both supervisors and students and are responsible for bridging the education gap between the university and clinical practice. Understanding of the actual subject matter – in this case facilitating autonomy – turns out to be very important for the individual ACL to manage to drive development and change. It impacted problems that they discerned and identified, and the choices they made in their planning [ 24 , 35 ]. Successful implementation also seems to depend on the mandate of the change agents, in this case the ACLs and their awareness of the practices at their unit and on different management levels [ 13 , 17 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. In addition to these requirements, we would argue that understanding how people learn in general is also critical to the implementation of new ideas. This statement is based on the application of the constructivist pedagogical framework underpinning this study [ 35 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ]. If development is to occur, all stakeholders must process and understand the meaning of autonomy and be able to relate and link it to their practice [ 13 , 17 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. The way the ACL communicated with and involved affected parties in their projects revealed their awareness of learning processes not only directed at facilitating autonomy. There were examples of projects in which an activity and/or a document was created by the ACL and the main strategy during implementation was to provide information about it to supervisors, managers, and students. This strategy essentially meant that no learning processes were initiated to facilitate understanding. In other projects, supervisors and/or students were involved to different extents in creating and making their own choices about how to perform suggested activities and review documents. These strategies encouraged the stakeholders to think about and react to practice, as well as reflect on what autonomy meant to them personally. Other factors conducive to active learning processes that were identified were planned follow-up opportunities, interactive feedback, and shared recurrent encounters to discuss documents and/or activities.

Strengths and limitations

The strength of this study lies in the theoretical and conceptual rigor applied throughout both the design process and the implementation of the educational intervention. There is also considerable procedural rigor due to the intervention being implemented with particularity and a firm epistemological stance. Limitations are connected to the sample of the study with only interested and ambitious learners who decided to take this course. However, this also contributes to rich data descriptions. There are notable challenges in studying an intervention that we as researchers have designed and the outcomes of this intervention. These challenges have been counteracted through constant reflexive discussions and questioning of assumptions.

This study shows that an educational intervention that emphasizes application of theoretical knowledge in clinical practice can enhance the development of evidence-based approaches to support students’ learning. Targeting a strategic group, such as the ACLs in this study, can be a successful way to strengthen faculty development. All participants in the intervention demonstrated the ability to use theoretical knowledge and create activities to support students’ learning. However, their applications differed in terms of underlying reasoning, reach and potential sustainability. To some extent these differences were due to a deeper understanding versus a more superficial understanding of the central concepts related to autonomy. Another critical factor affecting implementation was the ACLs understanding of learning processes in general. Lessons to learn for professional faculty development are that there is a need to stress individual understanding of actual theoretical concepts as well as learning theories in education addressing clinical faculty. The outcome of the ACLs planned projects turned out to be very dependent on their own mandate, the structure in the clinic, and acknowledgement of their work in the clinical context. This study also highlights that in order to achieve a potential continuity and sustainability of implemented changes in the clinic the implementation processes must be anchored throughout the actual organisation.

Data availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to ethical reasons connected to the participant’s informed consent. The data generated during this study consists of written reports and transcribed audio recordings of participants who have been guaranteed confidential handling of data. On reasonable request, data can be made available from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the adjunct clinical lecturers who kindly took part in the study.

Open access funding provided by Karolinska Institute. The study was funded by ALF, the Regional Agreement on Medical Training and Clinical Research between Region Stockholm and Karolinska Institutet.

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Charlotte Silén, Katri Manninen & Angelica Fredholm

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All authors were active in designing and executing the intervention and the study. CS and AF performed the analysis and wrote the manuscript. KM critically reviewed and contributed to the description of the results, read, and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Silén, C., Manninen, K. & Fredholm, A. Designing for student autonomy combining theory and clinical practice – a qualitative study with a faculty perspective. BMC Med Educ 24 , 532 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05514-y

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Directed research project

• Chemical Engineering (CHE) 298

Description:  Directed research project under the supervision of faculty members. Participation will give students experience in advanced research techniques, with valuable training for those potentially interested in graduate school or industrial research careers. Taken over and above normal course load. Good standing and permission of department required for registration.

Purpose: To provide a research and/or engineering design experience to Undergraduate Students.  Registration in the course provides documented academic credit for the activity which is completed above the normal course load. It does not count towards any degree requirements. This experience could take many different forms:

• Completion of an Undergraduate Research Assistantship (URA )
• Completions of a volunteer research assistantship in a faculty members lab or research group; or,
• Participation in an extra-curricular student design team on-campus, including student design teams and national or international competitions such as: University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team (UWAFT) in ECOCAR, Midnight Sun Solar Car, H2U Hydrogen Design Team, WERC Environmental Design Contest, AIChE's Student Chapter Competition - Chem-E-Car Competition, Minerva Canada’s James Ham Safe Design Award, Electric Mobility Canada Student Design Competition,  Hatch Plant Design Competition, iGEM Foundation is the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition, Canadian Engineering Competition, PEO Essay Contest, or Fuels Institute University Case Competition.

To participate in one of these courses, students must follow these guidelines:

• Ensure that you can commit the extra time to participate in a research project. A time commitment of 60 hours during the term would be typically required to make significant progress in a project. A previous term average over 70% will normally be required.
• Find a research supervisor (normally a faculty member in Department of Chemical Engineering or another engineering department). Project lists are not available. Use the department websites to identify a professor with research activity in your area of interest, and contact them to inquire about possible projects.
• Fill out a  registration form (available from the Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Office at E6-3026) describing the project title and name of supervisor. Also summarize the "deliverables", i.e., things that you and your supervisor have agreed will be done during the term, such as reports or presentations. Obtain signatures and submit to the office for approval.
• The registration form must be submitted by the end of the "Add" period (normally the end of the second week of classes) along with a completed course override form.
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Data Privacy

This $90m education research project is banking on data privacy to drive insights, by nadia tamez-robledo     may 17, 2024.

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With digital education platforms generating data on how millions of students are learning, they are also sitting on veritable information gold mines for researchers who are trying to improve education.

An ethical and legal conundrum stands in the way: how to responsibly share that data without opening students up to the possibility of having their personal information exposed to outside parties .

Now a consortium of education researchers and learning platforms are developing what they hope is a solution — researchers will never see the actual data.

The project dubbed SafeInsights, helmed by OpenStax at Rice University, is supported by a $90 million grant from the National Science Foundation over five years.

The idea is for SafeInsights to serve as a bridge between its learning platform and research partners, alongside collaborators helping flesh out how the exchange will work to safeguard student privacy.

“In a normal situation, you end up taking data from learning websites and apps and giving it to researchers for them to study and for them to analyze it to learn from,” JP Slavinsky, SafeInsights executive director and OpenStax technical director, says. “Instead, we're taking the researchers’ questions to that data. This creates a safer environment for research that's easier for schools and platforms to participate in, because the data is staying where it is already.”

Deeper Insights on a Large Scale

Another way to think of SafeInsights is as a telescope, say Slavinsky and his colleague Richard Baraniuk, the founder and director of OpenStax, which publishes open access course materials . It will allow researchers to peer into the vast amount of data from learning platforms like the University of Pennsylvania’s Massive Online Open Courses and Quill.org.

Researchers would develop questions — then transform those questions into computer code that can sift through the data — to be delivered to learning platforms. After the results are generated, they would be returned to researchers without the data ever having to be directly shared.

“It is really a partnership where we have researchers coming together with schools and platforms, and we're jointly trying to solve some problems of interest,” Slavinsky says. “We are providing that telescope for others to bring their research agenda and the questions they want to answer. So we're less involved on what specifically is going to be asked and more on making as many questions as possible answerable.”

Part of why this model would be so powerful is how it would increase the scale at which education research is done, Baraniuk says. There are plenty of studies that have small sample sizes of about 50 college students, he explains, who participate as part of a psychology class.

“A lot of the studies are about freshman college kids, right? Well, that's not representative of the huge breadth of different students,” Baraniuk says. “The only way you're gonna be able to see that breadth is by doing large studies, so really the first key behind SafeInsights is partnering with these digital education websites and apps who host literally millions of students every day.”

Another aspect where he sees the project opening new doors for researchers is the diversity of the student populations represented by the learning platform partners, which include education apps for reading, writing and science along with learning management systems.

“By putting together all of these puzzle pieces, the idea is that we can — at a very large scale — get to see a more complete picture of these students,” Baraniuk says. “The big goal of ours is to try to remove as much friction as possible so that more useful research can happen, and then more research-backed pedagogies and teaching techniques can actually get applied. But while removing that friction, how do we keep everything really safeguarded?”

Creating Trust, Protecting Privacy

Before any research takes place, SafeInsights partners at the Future of Privacy Forum are helping develop the policies that will shape how the program guards students’ data.

John Verdi, the Future of Privacy Forum’s senior vice president for policy, says the goal is to have privacy protections baked into how everything operates. Part of that is helping to develop what he calls the “data enclave,” or the process by which researchers can query a learning platform’s data without having direct access. Other aspects include helping develop the review process for how research projects are selected, training researchers on privacy and publishing lessons learned about operating with privacy at the forefront.

“Even if you have great technical safeguards in place, even if you do great ethical vetting,” he says about the training aspect, “at the end of the day, researchers themselves have decisions to make about how to responsibly use the system. They need to understand how the system works.”

The protection of student data privacy in education is generally “woefully under-funded,” he says, but it’s safeguarding that information that allows students to trust learning platforms — and ultimately create research opportunities like SafeInsights.

“Tasking students and parents to protect data is the wrong place to put that responsibility,” Verdi says. “Instead, what we need to do is build digital infrastructure that is privacy respectful by default, and [that] provides assurances that information will be kept confidential and used ethically.”

Nadia Tamez-Robledo ( @nadiatamezr ) is a reporter covering K-12 education for EdSurge with focuses on student and teacher mental health and changing demographics. You can reach her at nadia [at] edsurge [dot] com.

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Organizing a directed research project

Students who have completed two terms in law may apply for permission of the academic advisor to undertake research and writing in an area of their interest.

Please note that JD students may complete a maximum of two (2) directed research projects during the course of their studies. Exceptions to this rule may be granted by the Assistant Dean, JD Program of the English or French Vice-Deans, in rare cases where exceeding the limit is appropriate.

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Students who have completed two terms in law may apply for permission of the Academic Advisor to undertake research and writing in an area of their interest, under the supervision of a member of the Faculty who agrees to act as supervisor of the research. Students who enrol in this course must request permission to do so prior to the end of the add/drop period of the term in which they propose to undertake the research for units. Permission to enrol in this course will ordinarily be granted only to students who have demonstrated a high level of competence in their law studies.

Students must obtain the appropriate  form  and once completed and signed by the supervising Faculty member, it should be submitted to the Common Law Student Centre before the deadline indicated in the  Important Dates  of the Common Law Student Centre’s website. Forms handed in after those dates may be refused.

Guidelines approved by Faculty Council provide for the following:

• 3 units: 7500 to 10000 words (approximately 30 to 40 typed, double-spaced pages), excluding footnotes and bibliography

These guidelines are meant to assist students and their supervisors in assessing the unit value of the work undertaken and to provide some consistency between supervisors. Ultimately, however, the final determination is to be made by the supervisor in light of the type and complexity of the work.

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The purpose of this process is to ensure that all details about the graduate project are correctly defined, and that all relevant individuals involved with the project experience are informed about the proposed experience. In the event that any proposed project details need to be edited, the graduate student project registration process allows for individuals at different stages of the process to send the project registration back for updating before it can proceed to final approval at the Registrar office and entry into the Workday system.

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• Project Type -  This field specifies the type of graduate project experience you would like to register for within a specific graduate program, such as a PhD dissertation or Directed Research. Note that not all graduate programs have the same graduate project experience, which means several project types may not be available.
• Project Title - The project title briefly describes the proposed graduate project experience you are planning to pursue as part of this registration. When submitting a title, make sure to be concise, descriptive, avoid acronyms when possible, and avoid jargon. This project title is what will appear in Workday and your transcripts .
• Abstract - A short and concise abstract describing your proposed graduate project will assist in conveying to others what you are planning to pursue as part of this experience. In the case of PhD dissertation and MS thesis registrations, this abstract can be edited in amended registrations in subsequent semesters/years; it will automatically appear in future registrations.
• Department - This field indicates the academic department/program associated with the proposed graduate project experience, which may differ from your own affiliated academic department/program. For example, you could be registering for a Directed Research project in Robotics engineering but you are a MS student in ECE.
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• Co-Advisors - List any faculty co-advisors who are involved with the proposed graduate project experience.  
• Additional Students (optional) - Up to 10 additional students may be included in the registration.  Depending on the type of graduate project experience, please indicate other students who are involved with the proposed project. Note that they will also need to submit a graduate project registration request.

Once you've entered in all your details, please click Save and Review .  If any details need to be adjusted, you may click edit and fix them at this time.  When you're satisfied with your request, please submit it to your advisor for approval. Note that no further edits will be permitted past this point unless your advisor or the registrar's office sends the request back to you.

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UCSB Research Mentorship Program (RMP) 2024

The UCSB Research Mentorship Program (RMP) is seeking graduate students, postdocs, and researchers to mentor high school students through a research project in STEM, humanities, social sciences, or education. Up to $1300 per project, per student. Application deadline is June 1. Learn More!

The UCSB Research Mentorship Program (RMP) is seeking graduate students, postdocs, and researchers for a paid mentorship opportunity this summer. RMP is a highly selective and competitive six-week summer program that engages qualified, talented high school students from all over the world in interdisciplinary, hands-on, university-level research. RMP is seeking mentors who can guide students through a research project in STEM, humanities, social sciences, or education.

Program Details :

RMP students are highly qualified and expect to work independently; in addition, students are well-prepared and have extensive programming, lab, and primary source analysis experience.

Mentors must meet mentees regularly to guide students through projects. 

Prospective Mentors may submit up to 2 projects (up to 2 students per project for a compensation of up to $5,200).

The proposed project must have a hands-on component (lab, field, computational, theory, archival, primary source analysis, etc.).

Mentor Eligibility:

Graduate Student, Postdoctoral Researcher, Research Scientist, or Faculty

Must be available (on campus) during the program dates—short travel trips are acceptable during this period as long as it does not impact student support

All disciplines considered in STEM, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education (interdisciplinary preferred)

Dates : RMP is offered during Summer Session A (June 17-August 2).

Mentor Stipend : $1,300 per project, per student

Application Deadline: June 1, 2024  *Space is limited! Mentor applications are accepted and approved on a rolling basis.

For more program information or to apply , please visit:  summer.ucsb.edu/rmp/ mentors General questions, please email:  [email protected]

Texas Tech Now

Engineering capstone project yields useful tool.

May 17, 2024

A piece of research equipment made by students will be used in the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering.

What started as a capstone project handed to a group of students in Texas Tech University 's Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering has yielded a useful tool for future research. 

Given the opportunity to select a project, the undergraduate students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering leaned into helping current and future graduate students by creating a tool that could be used in rocket research.  

The equipment built by the students is called a thrust stand, and if you're not exactly sure what that is, you're not alone. 

“Basically, a thrust stand is a mounted rocket motor,” explained Joseph Pantoya, one of the mechanical engineering students involved in the project. “It collects thrust and pressure data for a given rocket fuel. 

“What we can do is get fuels that the combustion lab makes, put them in our rocket motor and test them out in a controlled environment.”

The capstone course brought together a team of six students from diverse backgrounds to complete the final steps in their mechanical engineering degrees with their project supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

Grants from sources like DOE and DOD give professors the resources needed to supply students with a hands-on learning experience while also creating something of value for the wider world. 

In this case, the thrust stand will be used by both graduate and undergraduate students in the Combustion Lab , where testing of accelerants used in various types of rockets takes place daily. The capstone project will help researchers test solid fuel combustion and better understand how those fuels can be designed to advance hypersonic combustion for propulsion applications. 

“Being able to help students in the lab publish research papers one day with something we designed is really cool,” said Juan Aguirre, another of the students involved with the thrust stand project. 

The project required working with graduate students in the lab to understand and address their needs in the design phase. Meeting the needs of those students was a critical piece of the puzzle, but it wasn't the only piece. 

Moving from the theoretical aspects of design into the actual production phase, managing a budget and producing a useful final product were all hurdles the thrust stand team had to conquer.

“We had a lot of challenges,” team member Ajibek Karatalov said. “Most of the challenges were logistical. For example, one of the main parts was shipped from Japan, and it never made it. I don't know why. So, these kinds of challenges were sort of boundaries, but I'm glad that we overcame them as a team.”

Luckily for the students, there are plenty of resources and mentors to lean on. Mechanical engineering's machine shop, for instance, provided the expertise the students needed to work through many of the technical issues along with the sage advice that comes from working with professionals. 

“I think having the shop instructors, Roy Mullins and David Meyers , they kind of gave us a new perspective on the issues we were facing,” said Jeffery (Mitch) McHugh, another team member. “They had more of a rounded perspective because they've worked in the field. That really helped us and gave us a perspective of what people that we may be working with in the future will have to say.”

The team's design was on display at the Mechanical Engineering Expo, an event held on Texas Tech's campus where, along with other teams from the department, the work of the last year is shown off to the campus community.

Mullins and the staff at the machine shop work with a wide range of students daily, helping with things like welding and machining parts that wouldn't normally be done by engineers in the field, and he was impressed with the thrust stand team's competency. 

“They've been a pretty self-sufficient group, actually,” Mullins said. “We've had to answer the usual technical questions and assist them in some machining, but for the most part, with the end design they've done really well on their own.

“It was a very specific subject. It was a research project tied to research we do in the department, so that was kind of unique in and of itself. But what really struck us about this project was it was for a research project that ties immediately to a critical problem.”

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University of Texas at Dallas students showed their penchant for discovery during Undergraduate Research Week , which was held April 15-19 and sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Education .

“We are very fortunate to have some of the best opportunities for undergraduates to engage in research here at UT Dallas,” said Dr. Jessica C. Murphy , dean of undergraduate education and Mary McDermott Cook Chair for Undergraduate Education. “Our team in the Office of Undergraduate Education does an excellent job helping students learn more about research opportunities and empowering undergraduates to articulate their experiences as they pursue a career and graduate school.”

A poster competition capped the week with presentations from 15 finalists chosen from nearly 200 entrants. Students presented their work to a panel of industry judges from Brinker International Inc., Doosan Robotics Americas, Trace3, Veritex Community Bank and Walmart Health.

Biology senior Jacob Roy, who also is pursuing a master’s degree in public affairs , placed first in the poster competition for his research in developing a new approach to RNA modulation. Healthcare studies senior Nanditha Niranjan placed second for her work exploring the impact of educating refugees about the U.S. health care system in reducing the cost of health care. Neuroscience and history senior Arlin Khan finished third for her research on the use of vagus nerve stimulation to aid in the recovery of laryngeal nerve damage.

Students learned much more than basic experimental design throughout their experiences. In addition to technical abilities, they picked up a wide range of professional skills necessary to pursue careers beyond graduation.

“Science takes a lot of patience. All of this took multiple semesters of work,” Khan said. “In a world where things are really instantaneous, I think science is one of those things you have to learn to be patient for and let things work out. I also learned critical thinking and problem solving.”

Garth Edwards, executive vice president at Veritex Community Bank, said: “The subjects of the research are so diverse —  some of these subjects are so relevant today, and some are like, ‘We probably need to be thinking more about them.’ It’s so amazing what [the students] are doing. I’m very encouraged.”

In addition to poster presentations, research week included a match day with more than 20 labs and 200 students, resume workshops and a panel discussion.

Media Contact: The Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, [email protected] .

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ACS Project SEED Program – Bringing Research and High School Students Together

This summer, 17 high school students in the American Chemical Society Snake River Section will have the opportunity to conduct research through the ACS Project SEED program.

Project SEED, originally “Summer Experiences for the Economically Disadvantaged,” was born in 1968. Now 56 years old, the program has provided hands-on summer research experiences and webinars to over 13,000 students across the U.S. and its territories. The Project SEED Mission is “to provide sustained STEM research, learning, and growth opportunities for high school students with diverse identities and socioeconomic backgrounds so they can be empowered to advance and enrich the chemical science enterprise.”

Each year, high school students spend 10 weeks in an industry lab or at host institutions like Boise State University working alongside PIs and qualified mentors on cutting-edge research projects. In addition to the technical skills learned in the lab, students will participate in professional development activities to enhance skills in time management, teamwork, and research presentation. The Project SEED webinars cover topics such as personal and chemical safety, career exploration, college readiness, resume building, and mental health and wellness. The summer experience is culminated in a poster presentation where the student present their research, with this year’s presentations being held at the Idaho Conference on Undergraduate Research.

The ACS Snake River Section Project SEED coordinator is Boise State’s Dr. Don Warner, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. This year he placed 17 students, 8 of whom are returning participants. He received 70 applications and conducted 24 initial interviews to fill the 9 open spots. Two students are going to Northwest Nazarene University to work with Jerry Harris on synthesizing and characterizing zinc oxide nanoparticles with enhanced antimicrobial properties. Two more will go to Danny Xu’s lab at Idaho State University – Meridian to research the effects of Lunar and Martian regolith on zebrafish.

The remaining 13 students will be working in several laboratories across campus at Boise State University this summer. The PIs hosting students, and their projects, are:

• Oliviero Andreussi: Computational Study of Materials for Electro-Catalysis
• Leonora Bittleston: 4: Exploring the effects of leaf chemistry on microbial colonization
• Eric Brown: Development of molecules that inhibit a bacteria’s ability to cause disease
• Ken Cornell: Analysis of Antimicrobial Activity of Nanoparticles and Organometallic Complexes
• Jenée Cyran & Brian McClain: Developing innovative Physical Chemistry Lab Modules
• Owen McDougal: Chemistry of Food Systems
• Konrad Meister: Cool Molecules: Understanding the Mode of Action of Ice-Binding Macromolecules
• Don Warner: Synthesis of small molecules for inhibition of tumor metastasis
• Claire Xiong: Sodium Ion Batteries

Participants in the Project SEED program are awarded a stipend for their efforts, providing low-income students the opportunity to participate while earning money to help support their families. This crucial funding in 2024 is largely from the American Chemical Society, but also contributed to by Northwest Nazarene University, the ACS Snake River Local Section, and from Boise State University’s College of Arts & Sciences, Research and Economic Development, Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry & Biochemistry, several individual PIs, and the university itself. Some of the program’s graduates will also receive scholarships from Project SEED to help fund their undergraduate education.

For more information on this amazing program, visit ACS News to read Project SEED’s Impact Continues to Grow .

Interested in getting involved? Visit Project SEED on the American Chemical Society’s webpage.

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry