Research Apprenticeship

Research Apprenticeship

An integral part of our doctoral program is apprenticing students in research. Our doctoral students begin doing real, publishable research from day one through our innovative research apprenticeship courses. Students take courses with their advisor (and in some cases, other faculty) every semester of their graduate program. These research apprenticeships allow students to conduct research studies in teams with other students and faculty. Some permit engagement with ongoing funded research projects, while others involve student-led projects, but all involve extensive feedback and interaction with other faculty. The apprenticeships also permit students to practice all phases of research in studies that may span multiple semesters, avoiding the "toy projects" syndrome associated with scholarship that is exclusively course- or semester-based. These courses allow a more intensive mentorship process than those that are typical either in graduate advising or in semester-long courses. See the example below of one such project.

LDT 594 Profile: Learning Goes Into Space

Barbara Grabowski had been doing work with NASA for years on student project- and problem-based learning in the Kids as Airborn Mission Scientists for several years. But the LDT 594 experience allowed her to open up the project to involve many more students in the research. The 594 team began to investigate the impact of teachers using problem-based learning materials on teaching practice.

This initial question has emerged into an investigation of the relationship of teacher and student characteristics on teaching practice and student problem solving ability. Students have been able to learn to develop and validate measurement instruments, develop and execute protocol for conducting research over the web, work extensively with human subjects and research ethics issues, navigate the complexities of working in middle schools, develop interviewing skills, analyze data, and present at conferences. Students also gained valuable practice contributing to grant writing.

Six sub-groups are now working diligently on continuing this research in a variety of ways:

1. developing a conceptual understanding of PBL,

2. conducting a statewide study in preparation for a nationwide study,

3. conducting a qualitative case study investigation,

4. writing up the results of the teacher pilot data for publication,

5. writing up the results of the student pilot data for publication, and

6. developing a professional development workshop based on data, instructional design, learning and instructional theory.

Small steps are made toward the larger goal each semester, and each semester poses new challenges that are embraced by the team of new and seasoned 594 researchers.

An evaluation of the research apprenticeships revealed that students felt they increased opportunities to engage in collaborative, publishable work from literature review to final publication. For more information on this innovative component of the LDT program, see the evaluation (itself a product of LDT 594) by faculty member Ali Carr-Chellman, Husra Gursoy, Luis Almeida, and Brian Beabout, published in 2006 in the British Journal of Educational Technology.