Undergraduate research

Abstract

This paper describes a one semester research course for undergraduates of computing programs. Students formulate a research proposal, conduct research and write a full paper. They present the results at a one-day student conference. On the one hand we offer the students a lot of structure and support; on the other hand an important feature of the course is that they are in control of their own research. A key aspect of the pedagogical approach is that the students are supervised in small teams by experienced staff. The results of evaluations show that the students are positive about the course. One of the main findings is that they feel well prepared to conduct research in the graduate program.

Teaching Computing as Science in a Research Experience

“…We concur with Walker [24] and others [2,19] regarding the need for a structured process with deliverables. However, we view the paper-writing process as secondary to the scientific process our written milestones are designed to engage.…”

“…Although Havill and Ludwig [15] use formal peer review of oral presentations, our informal practice of verbal debriefing as a group seems effective, satisfactory, and less time consuming. Koppelman et al [19] use formal peer review for proposals and the final research product. In our experience, formative reviews and feedback from peers and mentors, whether informal or formal, seem to be helpful for students in all milestones and activities.…”

“…Using the survey of undergraduate research experiences (SURE), Lopatto [22] showed that such experiences in the sciences generally do enhance students' educational experiences, attract students to research careers, and help retain minority students. In computing, several research experience models exist: an integrated curriculum [29,14], a universal capstone course [30,34,19], or the traditional apprenticeship model [4,36,18,27,7]. Despite these efforts, this work shows that a significant learning gap persists between undergraduate research experiences in computing and the other STEM fields.…”

“…SIGCSE '15, March 4-7, 2015 work of core and specific skills for reasoning about computing research methods. Some instructors and institutions teach these skills in stand-alone courses offering instruction on various combinations of assessing literature, formulating research questions, preparing formal proposals, designing experiments, analyzing statistics, and communicating results [37,11,35,28,32,15,19].…”

Transforming programming-intensive courses with course-embedded research

“…For example, semester-long courses have been described which guide students on the formulation of a research proposal [4] or the creation of a research conference paper [5]. Others have incorporated research projects as part of a capstone experience for students [6].…”