For the second consecutive year, a group of four undergraduates and three faculty mentors from Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus (IUPUC) were selected to participate in the annual research conference sponsored by Indiana University.
The 20th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference (IUURC), held Nov. 21 in the Indiana University Memorial Union, showcases the outstanding research of students in the IU system.
“The IUURC provides IUPUC students with a forum within which to showcase their mentored research projects. These students have gone above and beyond their required work in the classroom because they have worked closely with their IUPUC faculty mentors in order to be able to present scholarship that is among the best that any IU student can produce. Our students were allowed to shine at this conference: they are among the best and the brightest undergraduates,” said Dr. Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick, director of IUPUC’s Office of Student Research (OSR).
According to Goodspeed-Chadwick, the IUPUC research focused on business, liberal arts, and science. The following students presented:
STUDENT: Kylie Marie Bennett
Faculty mentor: Dr. Erica Berte
Project title: “Instructors’ Perceptions of the Best and Worst Practices in Online Classes.”
Online learning has become increasingly popular over the last few years. In order to meet students’ needs, universities are offering more online courses. Instructors have difficulty designing online courses that are effective and help students learn the necessary course material. To assist instructors in better developing online courses, this research project has the purpose of identifying instructors’ perceptions of the most beneficial practices in designing and teaching online courses. The study methodology is quantitative. Primary data will be collected through a survey. The sample will be Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus professors who have previously taught an online course. Data from the survey will be used to determine what instructors of online courses perceive to be the best strategies in designing and teaching an online course. The results of this project can guide instructors to implement the best strategies into the online courses that they are teaching.
STUDENT: Courtney Taylor Linville
Faculty mentor: Dr. Erica Berte
Project title: “Students’ Perceptions of the Best and Worst Practices in Online Classes.”
The online learning environment continues to grow every year. The quality of online education also needs to grow and improve. Many instructors have teaching strategies that they use in face-to-face classes; however, these strategies may not be the best way to deliver an online class. It is important to remember that online classes are a different environment than face-to-face classes and require a different set of teaching strategies. To assist instructors in designing and delivering online classes, this research will gather students’ perceptions of online classes using a quantitative research methodology. It will uncover which teaching strategies students feel are most helpful in online classes and which strategies are not helpful. The data for this project will be collected through a survey that will be distributed to students at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus that have taken at least one online class. From the survey, we expect to learn what students find to be the most helpful strategies for promoting learning in the online class format. The results of this project will give instructors the opportunity to better develop their online classes by implementing the most effective online teaching strategies.
STUDENT: Brittany Talissa King
Faculty mentor: Dr. Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick
Project title: “The Legacy of Slavery’s Trauma: Dark-Skinned Women and Bleaching.”
This project will focus on the legacy of slavery's trauma, specifically concentrating on dark-skinned women and bleaching. The purpose of this research is to explore and expose how trauma from slavery and the binary oppositions of skin complexions created during that time have negatively marked dark-skinned women then and now. This damaging construction has continued to blanket the identity of dark-skinned women, which, consequently, has created the desire within these women to lighten their complexion by bleaching. I will use the visuals and spoken word text within the trailer of Ng'endo Mukii's "Yellow Fever" as the main focus of this investigation. The video displays dark-skinned black women, a bleached black woman, and beauty imagery (e.g., ads, posters, magazines etc.), capturing how society reinforces an ideology about dark skin that stems from slavery. Along with this video, concepts from theorists, writers, authors such as Dominick LaCapra, Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick, and H.D, are also applied. The trauma and impact of slavery need to be exposed and dealt with in order to understand why many dark-skinned women resort to harmfully lightening their skin with bleaching products. By understanding the falsities of identity created in slavery and the refashioning of how dark-skinned women are regarded today, we can began to erase the negative markings on dark skin, thereby no longer allowing slavery's constructions to influence how society portrays these women--or how these women negatively view themselves.
STUDENT: Megan Alyse Taylor
Faculty mentor: Dr. Mark Jaime
Project title: “Recognition of First-Person Action in Typically Developing Children and Children on the Autism Spectrum.”
How children represent their own experiences as they navigate in the environment is important for a better understanding of cognitive development. Previous studies that have used eye tracking on head mounted cameras have demonstrated that there are differences in how infants attend to their surroundings compared to older age groups. However, little research has explored children’s ability to recognize first-person experiences, how this ability changes with age, and whether it is affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current ongoing study is assessing how typically developing children and children with ASD recognize first-person videos of natural movements such as walking and jumping. Twelve typically developing children and 5 children with ASD (2 to 8 years of age) have participated in this study so far. Children are asked to wear a small chest-mounted camera that records their actions as they walk and jump in a pre-specified location. After their recordings are made, children are seated in front of two side-by-side monitors and their movie is played back across 10 trials. One monitor displays the movie of the child’s previously recorded actions and the second monitor displays a movie of the same actions but from another child. Children are then asked to indicate which movie belongs to them. The current results are preliminary, but they suggest that children’s ability to recognize first-person action improves with age. In addition, children with ASD appear to be marginally more accurate than typically developing children when recognizing first-person videos of walking action but less accurate than typically developing children when recognizing first-person videos of jumping movements. These preliminary findings may suggest that children with ASD show differences in their ability to remember first-person experiences relative to typical development. However, more data is needed to support these conclusions.
Over the past four years, IUPUC has made a significant commitment to fostering student research, investing about $40,000 in funded grants for individual students working under the direction of faculty mentors.
The university established the OSR in 2010 and appointed Goodspeed-Chadwick to oversee the proposal, review, and selection process, as well as to distribute funding and promote and mentor student research on the IUPUC campus. The OSR also hosts an exhibition of funded student work in Columbus each April.
For more information about student research at IUPUC, visit iupuc.edu/student-research and contact Dr. Goodspeed-Chadwick at juligood@iupuc.edu or 812.348.7270.