A Structured Approach to Honours Undergraduate Research Course, Evaluation Rubrics and Assessment

Amar Khoukhi

doi:10.1007/s10956-012-9419-3

A Structured Approach to Honours Undergraduate Research Course, Evaluation Rubrics and Assessment

Amar Khoukhi^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper presents a new approach to the Honours Undergraduate Research Course design and implementation. The course design process, assessment and evaluation rubrics are provided. Lessons learned and the experience of the faced challenges and opportunities for two cohort offerings of the course during the winter terms of 2011 and 2012 are highlighted. Assessments show that major benefits include increasing interaction with the faculty and increasing intellectual maturity, skills, knowledge and confidence for the students and for the faculty, the furthering of research projects by the participation of undergraduate students. The course can serve as a model that can be easily adapted for use across the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	630-650
Number of pages	21
Journal	Journal of Science Education and Technology
Volume	22
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-012-9419-3
State	Published - Oct 2013

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The U.S. Department of Education and National Science Foundation funded several research proposals into the importance of undergraduate research. (Please see DeHaan 2005; Seymour et al. 2004; Bauer and Bennett 2003 and the references therein).

Funding Information:
Acknowledgments The author would like to gratefully thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Prof. Lapatto for providing the SURE Assessment tools and surveys. Many thanks also to all faculty participants who made possible the success of this experience. This research was funded by the Deanship of Academic Development, KFUPM, under URPI Project, Grant #DAD036.

Funding Information:
There are already several possibilities for involving undergraduate students in faculty research projects, using several available grant sources, for example, Internal and Fast Track of Deanship of Scientific Research, Research Institute, The National Saudi Funding Agency KACST (King Abdul-Aziz City of Science and Technology), etc. The availability of opportunities can be extended to all university academic departments and research centres. Many students elect to tackle special problems to gain valuable hands-on experience in the laboratory or computational settings with a faculty member. As a researcher, a student will seek answers to questions of great interest. He/ she will choose the tools, gather and analyse the data that will help him/her to delve deeper to find answers. However, a more formal involvement of students through university administration will certainly increase the number of participating students and the quality of their research achievements. Furthermore, the programme will allow students to learn more and improve their ability of research, which will be linked to their performance in their graduate studies. They will receive support in exploring

Funding Information:
The defined rubrics are related to the grading components. Homework is based on multiple choices, true/false and related type of questions, which do not need a rubric for evaluation. In ‘‘Appendix 2’’, six rubrics are provided to evaluate the course grading components. In-class participation and meetings with supervisors (Rubric 1), team work (Rubric 2), the research proposal has two gradable parts: the proposal report and the proposal presentation which are assessed through Rubrics 3 and 4. Rubrics 3 and 4 were also adopted for the new undergraduate research grant initiated by the University Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR-KFUPM 2012). The achieved research is evaluated through the accomplishment of the projects. The research achievement component is given the highest weight through achieving objectives and deliverables as stated and claimed in the research proposal. The final report is assessed through rubric 5. The final presentation is assessed based on rubric 4 like for the proposal presentation, considering the progress made since the presentation of the proposal. Finally, regarding the conference paper, the faculty supervisor or instructor suggests a conference manuscript template according to the project topic. Rubric 6 provides with basic guidelines to assess paper writing abilities and performance.

Keywords

Course design
Evaluation rubrics
Honours Undergraduate Research
Science, technology, Engineering and mathematics (STEM)
Undergraduate Research Program

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education
General Engineering

Access to Document

10.1007/s10956-012-9419-3

Cite this

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title = "A Structured Approach to Honours Undergraduate Research Course, Evaluation Rubrics and Assessment",

abstract = "This paper presents a new approach to the Honours Undergraduate Research Course design and implementation. The course design process, assessment and evaluation rubrics are provided. Lessons learned and the experience of the faced challenges and opportunities for two cohort offerings of the course during the winter terms of 2011 and 2012 are highlighted. Assessments show that major benefits include increasing interaction with the faculty and increasing intellectual maturity, skills, knowledge and confidence for the students and for the faculty, the furthering of research projects by the participation of undergraduate students. The course can serve as a model that can be easily adapted for use across the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.",

keywords = "Course design, Evaluation rubrics, Honours Undergraduate Research, Science, technology, Engineering and mathematics (STEM), Undergraduate Research Program",

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note = "Funding Information: The U.S. Department of Education and National Science Foundation funded several research proposals into the importance of undergraduate research. (Please see DeHaan 2005; Seymour et al. 2004; Bauer and Bennett 2003 and the references therein). Funding Information: Acknowledgments The author would like to gratefully thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Prof. Lapatto for providing the SURE Assessment tools and surveys. Many thanks also to all faculty participants who made possible the success of this experience. This research was funded by the Deanship of Academic Development, KFUPM, under URPI Project, Grant \#DAD036. Funding Information: There are already several possibilities for involving undergraduate students in faculty research projects, using several available grant sources, for example, Internal and Fast Track of Deanship of Scientific Research, Research Institute, The National Saudi Funding Agency KACST (King Abdul-Aziz City of Science and Technology), etc. The availability of opportunities can be extended to all university academic departments and research centres. Many students elect to tackle special problems to gain valuable hands-on experience in the laboratory or computational settings with a faculty member. As a researcher, a student will seek answers to questions of great interest. He/ she will choose the tools, gather and analyse the data that will help him/her to delve deeper to find answers. However, a more formal involvement of students through university administration will certainly increase the number of participating students and the quality of their research achievements. Furthermore, the programme will allow students to learn more and improve their ability of research, which will be linked to their performance in their graduate studies. They will receive support in exploring Funding Information: The defined rubrics are related to the grading components. Homework is based on multiple choices, true/false and related type of questions, which do not need a rubric for evaluation. In {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}Appendix 2{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright}, six rubrics are provided to evaluate the course grading components. In-class participation and meetings with supervisors (Rubric 1), team work (Rubric 2), the research proposal has two gradable parts: the proposal report and the proposal presentation which are assessed through Rubrics 3 and 4. Rubrics 3 and 4 were also adopted for the new undergraduate research grant initiated by the University Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR-KFUPM 2012). The achieved research is evaluated through the accomplishment of the projects. The research achievement component is given the highest weight through achieving objectives and deliverables as stated and claimed in the research proposal. The final report is assessed through rubric 5. The final presentation is assessed based on rubric 4 like for the proposal presentation, considering the progress made since the presentation of the proposal. Finally, regarding the conference paper, the faculty supervisor or instructor suggests a conference manuscript template according to the project topic. Rubric 6 provides with basic guidelines to assess paper writing abilities and performance.",

year = "2013",

month = oct,

doi = "10.1007/s10956-012-9419-3",

language = "English",

volume = "22",

pages = "630--650",

journal = "Journal of Science Education and Technology",

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A Structured Approach to Honours Undergraduate Research Course, Evaluation Rubrics and Assessment

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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