Undergraduate Research

Griffith Emily Finding Undergraduate Research Projects153.pdf

Dr. Stephany Dunstan, formerly the Assistant Vice Provost for Assessment and Accreditation at NC State, and I work with undergraduate statistics students to analyze datasets and answer research questions from campus data stewards. 

We expanded our efforts in the spring of 2020, teaching an undergraduate research practicum to statistics majors. Instead of using student retention and success data, we worked with two different campus stakeholders to analyze their data. We presented our course plans and ideas as an invited poster at the 2020 Joint Statistical Meetings.

Previously, we gave a talk at the 2018 Joint Statistical Meetings to summarize our undergraduate research process.

These undergraduate research projects benefit the university by answering questions about retention and graduation, and they also benefit our students by allowing them to build models from large datasets that directly impact them. As we have built this program, we have increased the number of students involved and the expectations for them. Our students regularly present at the Undergraduate Research Symposium in the spring semester.