Harder things will stretch you further: helping first-year undergraduate students meaningfully engage with recent research papers in probability and statistics
Abstract
Undergraduate research increasingly features in university mathematics degrees. Despite this, research papers are used infrequently in mathematics teaching, and this is especially the case for first-year undergraduates. Mathematical subjects are more likely than other STEM disciplines to pinpoint cognitive difficulty as the principal reason for not exposing undergraduate students to research papers. In this paper, we test whether first-year students can engage effectively with research papers. We describe an intervention that exposes first-year, first term undergraduate students to current research in probability and statistics by asking them to read a research paper and summarize it for a general readership following an interview with the paper’s author. Our findings show that the activity introduced students to new fields of knowledge and helped to develop a clearer understanding of scientific process, leading to a heightened sense of personal satisfaction at engaging closely with current research. We argue that structured reading of research papers can lead to productive and rewarding engagement with difficult content, recent and current research and with research processes and that this should make us reconsider the role of research papers in the undergraduate mathematics curriculum.
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The few approaches identified in math were centered more on statistics and applied mathematics and not on pure math.
“The few approaches we identified were centered more on statistics and applied mathematics (Grindle et al., 2021; Maher, 2005; Rabin and Nutter-Upham, 2010) and not on pure math.”
From Reading Primary Scientific Literature: Approaches for Teaching Students in the Undergraduate STEM Classroom (2023) · cites this paper as Grindle et al., 2021
Cites
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“The few approaches we identified were centered more on statistics and applied mathematics (Grindle et al., 2021; Maher, 2005; Rabin and Nutter-Upham, 2010) and not on pure math.”
MethodRe-evaluating Passive Research Involvement in the Undergraduate Curriculum
Grindle, N., Anyadi, S., Cain, A., McClelland, A., Northrop, P. J., Payne, R., & Gray, S. W. (2021) · Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research · doi:10.18833/spur/5/1/12 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Self-citationKalinin, S. I., & Ивановна, Т. С. (2022) · Perspectives of science and education · doi:10.32744/pse.2022.3.14 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Introducing a Research Project to a First-year Mechanical Laboratory Course
Ma, G., Kumar, A., & Voccio, J. P. (2024) · First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE) · doi:10.18260/1-2--44844
Reflections on a linear algebra reading comprehension exercise arising from macroeconomics
Meyer, J. C. (2024) · Teaching Mathematics and its Applications An International Journal of the IMA · doi:10.1093/teamat/hrae017
- Authors
- Grindle, N., Jones, E., & Northrop, P.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Grindle, Nicholas
- Venue
- Teaching Mathematics and its Applications: An International Journal of the IMA
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2020-06-10
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-15
- ISSN
- 0268-3679 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-6976
- OpenAlex
- W3019139103
- Cited by
- 5
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 0.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
- Locations
- Teaching Mathematics and its Applications An International Journal of the IMA (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistics Education and Methodologies
- Social Sciences › Education › Mathematics Education and Teaching Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › Mathematics Education and Programs
- Keywords
- undergraduate research, first-year students, probability and statistics education, undergraduate mathematics curriculum, student satisfaction
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