Engaging undergraduate students to analyze the results of published research articles

Abstract

Engineering institutions offer technical education by designing curriculum based on expected graduate attributes. The ability of undergraduate students (UG) to analyze complex engineering problems is one of the attributes and it is addressed by enabling students to work on certain projects or problems. The research experience during undergraduate studies can enhance the overall educational experience of students. But implementing research activities for undergraduate students can be challenging. To engage UG students, researchers have tried different strategies to enhance the research experience of students. This paper presents a case study in which, third-year students of Electrical Engineering were engaged to analyze the results of the combined economic emission dispatch problem (CEED) reported in past literature. As a part of in-semesterexamination (ISE) for the course Power System Operation and Control, the students were given different research papers published in reputed international journals and associated with the CEED problem. The students were asked to identify the main equations, collect supporting data from literature and develop a computer program in MATLAB to analyze results in the research article under study. Each student presented findings on the assigned paper, the computer program developed, with explanations and conclusions. The research findings of all students were appropriately consolidated to prepare the manuscript as a review article for submission to a suitable international journal. The proposed methodology can be easily implemented in other courses by properly defining thescope of research work expected from students. The research experience of students (experimental group) was measured by conducting a test and the results were compared with other students (control group). The results show that students under experiment performed better than other students. Keywords— Analysis; CEED; in-semester-examination; MATLAB; undergraduate research.