College and Career
Using Applied Research-focused Seminars to Support Post-graduate Students's Quantitative Research Techniques
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gibbs Kanyongo, Kakoma Luneta
This paper disseminates identified challenges and strategies for supporting post-graduate student’s skill development in the areas of social science when applying statistical concepts for designing research. This study is geared toward researcher development by sharing our own experiences of designing a seminar focused on these concepts. Although we do provide examples of relevant literature to support the need for pedagogical exploration and empirical research in this area, the authors chose primarily to share the process using a descriptive format as a starting point for future researchers’ considerations. The details of the seminar are shared including structure, format, and content delivered. Additionally, reflections are shared specific to general student barriers and feedback. The paper is proposed to inform practice and includes a discussion of teacher educator application for future delivery of teaching statistics to post-graduate students. Our discussion and shared framework of instruction offer support to teacher educators in the field of statistics to be aware of barriers experienced by post-graduates and offers strategies to support their development of skills. Although there is evidence to support students report anxiety and consider statistics courses to be a barrier to their success in post-graduate students (Cook et. al., 2003; Onwuegbuzie et al., 2003), there is a dearth of evidence identifying those barriers from statistical skills deficit analysis or exploring practical solutions for teaching practices to lessen this barrier. This overview has the potential to provide a starting point for future research development related to teaching statistical concepts effectively to post-graduate students.
Facing the Challenges of Thesis Seminars: Changes in Curricular Design and Effects on Academic Performance in Management Students
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mario Marcello Pasco-Dalla-Porta, Fatima Ponce
A growing body of literature highlights the challenges of research methods courses, especially thesis seminars. For most students, these are abstract courses with limited application in professional life. This perspective is intensified in eminently practical careers such as management. Because of this, many academic programs constantly seek to enrich the curricular design with new teaching-learning strategies. The context of the present study is an undergraduate management program at a private university in Peru that offers two sequenced seminars: one to develop the research up to the methodological design phase (S1), and another to carry out the field work and report the results (S2). This curricular structure underwent two changes: the creation of a course, previous to S1, focused on the delimitation of a viable thesis topic; and the incorporation of additional hours of tutoring in S1 on systematic literature search and consultation of information in sectoral repositories. The research sought to determine the effect of these changes on the academic performance of the thesis students. The methodology included a survey applied to the students and a combination of measurements on their academic performance, data on which regression analyses were subsequently carried out. The study showed mixed results: an initial positive effect of the first change, but limited effects of the second change. This serves as a basis for a reflection on the challenges faced by teachers and students when incorporating these changes.
The Forgotten Academic Educators: Academic/Research Librarians and their Role the Adoption and Incorporation of AI tools in Library instruction and Information Literacy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Marisol Ramos, Araceli Benítez Arzate, Alma Ortega
Even though academic librarians are educators, they are often forgotten when discussing pedagogical approaches and activities in Higher Education. Academic librarians are information professionals whose duties include supporting faculty and students by offering a variety of library instruction, from in-class presentations on research strategies to topic-specific workshops. With the arrival of Generative AI chatbots and similar tools, academic librarians, like most educators, found themselves in the position to address a disruptive technology that brings with it challenges and opportunities to educate students and faculty on how to take advantage of these new tools. Librarians can guide students away from using AI tools intuitively toward a more holistic approach to avoid frustration due to wasted time spent finding fictitious resources. This research highlights our experiences incorporating and assessing Generative AI for library instruction and identifying challenges and opportunities to train our peers, and other academic librarians, to embrace these new technologies and teach the best ways to apply them to improve the research experience for the university community. Dr. Marisol Ramos will discuss incorporating AI tools in her literature review workshops. Dr. Araceli Benitez Arzate, who was a research librarian for 15 years and currently, a Humanities professor, will report how she incorporated commercial database AI tools in her classroom with promising results. Finally, Dr. Alma C. Ortega will present how her library created a task force to improve training opportunities for librarians to operationalize the use of AI in their practice.
