TY - JOUR
T1 - Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Statistics
T2 - Reaping the Benefits and Overcoming the Barriers
AU - Nolan, Joseph R.
AU - McConville, Kelly S.
AU - Addona, Vittorio
AU - Tintle, Nathan L.
AU - Pearl, Dennis K.
N1 - Funding Information:
To address the preparation of students so they can be more helpful in contributing to faculty research programs, Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) centers can run bootcamps or short courses at the start of the summer before the REU begins. Prominent examples include the Research for Undergraduates Summer Institute of Statistics (15 students supported by the NSA and NSF; see https://stat.oregonstate.edu/rusis\%40OSU ) which has been held annually for 16 years, and the Mathematical Biosciences Institute REU (≈8 students supported by NSF; see https://mbi.osu.edu/education/summer-reu-program ). When students are asked to work in teams, these bootcamp experiences can also help to level the playing field so that every student can make valuable contributions to team efforts. For smaller, individual summer reseach programs a student might take a reading course on the topic during the spring semester to prepare for their summer work.
Funding Information:
A student’s federal work-study can also be applied to doing undergraduate research with a faculty member. Dorff and Narayan () suggested reaching out to your financial aid department for help on incorporating federal work-study in an URE. The development office is another resource they recommend as the development staff may know of alumni who would be interested in funding UREs. For instance, Reed College’s internal grant for students to conduct summer undergraduate research in the sciences is funded by alumni giving. California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, recently received an alumni gift, one of the largest in California public higher education, to support undergraduate research (Lazier ). This gift supports 20–25 undergraduate research projects in the Statistics Department each year.
Funding Information:
Faculty are wise to seek funding for their undergraduate student researchers. They should first explore what possibilities may exist internally through the department and the college, as many institutions have funds that are earmarked for UREs. For external sources, the faculty member should work with their institution’s office for sponsored programs to learn about national grants that may support UREs in statistics, such as the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates Sites and Supplements awards (NSF-REU), the NSF Facilitating Research at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions awards (NSF-RUI) and the NIH Research Enhancement Award (NIH-R15). Each year the NSF gives out 1600 supplement awards across all directorates. Recently the ASA received an REU grant and was able to support statistics related REUs at nine institutions (Ward ). While REU programs in statistics are continually changing, an updated listing is available on NSF’s site ( https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.jsp?unitid=5044 ).
Funding Information:
Funding can be available from government contracts or local businesses who have compelling data and questions. The Reed Forestry Data Science Research Lab, for example, is funded by the institution and by the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program. At Dordt, a local engineering firm decided that, rather than have internships on their campus and mentored by their engineers, who have little experience working with undergraduates, they would fund student interns, and a portion of associated faculty salary, for students to work on Dordt’s campus, mentored primarily by Dordt faculty but on a project of interest to the funding firm. This win-win-win model (The firm gets to support interns, receives the outcomes it wants, and sees little impact on their employees time; The students gets real world experience mentored by experts in undergraduate education; The faculty receive funding for work with students and participate in cutting edge projects) is of increasing interest to local businesses. These funding ideas of course require networking by the faculty member and the development office, who must have the ability to pitch the utility of UREs in statistics. We hope the benefits provided in embolden statistics faculty to take up this challenge.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2020/5/3
Y1 - 2020/5/3
N2 - Undergraduate research experiences (UREs), whether within the context of a mentor-mentee experience or a classroom framework, represent an excellent opportunity to expose students to the independent scholarship model. The high impact of undergraduate research has received recent attention in the context of STEM disciplines. Reflecting a 2017 survey of statistics faculty, this article examines the perceived benefits of UREs, as well as barriers to the incorporation of UREs, specifically within the field of statistics. Viewpoints of students, faculty mentors, and institutions are investigated. Further, the article offers several strategies for leveraging characteristics unique to the field of statistics to overcome barriers and thereby provide greater opportunity for undergraduate statistics students to gain research experience.
AB - Undergraduate research experiences (UREs), whether within the context of a mentor-mentee experience or a classroom framework, represent an excellent opportunity to expose students to the independent scholarship model. The high impact of undergraduate research has received recent attention in the context of STEM disciplines. Reflecting a 2017 survey of statistics faculty, this article examines the perceived benefits of UREs, as well as barriers to the incorporation of UREs, specifically within the field of statistics. Viewpoints of students, faculty mentors, and institutions are investigated. Further, the article offers several strategies for leveraging characteristics unique to the field of statistics to overcome barriers and thereby provide greater opportunity for undergraduate statistics students to gain research experience.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084979253&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85084979253&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10691898.2020.1756542
DO - 10.1080/10691898.2020.1756542
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85084979253
SN - 1069-1898
VL - 28
SP - 140
EP - 153
JO - Journal of Statistics Education
JF - Journal of Statistics Education
IS - 2
ER -