Graduate students' teaching experiences improve their methodological research skills

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Science

Publication Date

8-19-2011

Abstract

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduate students are often encouraged to maximize their engagement with supervised research and minimize teaching obligations. However, the process of teaching students engaged in inquiry provides practice in the application of important research skills. Using a performance rubric, we compared the quality of methodological skills demonstrated in written research proposals for two groups of early career graduate students (those with both teaching and research responsibilities and those with only research responsibilities) at the beginning and end of an academic year. After statistically controlling for preexisting differences between groups, students who both taught and conducted research demonstrate significantly greater improvement in their abilities to generate testable hypotheses and design valid experiments. These results indicate that teaching experience can contribute substantially to the improvement of essential research skills.

ISSN

0036-8075

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Volume

333

Issue

6045

First Page

1037

Last Page

1039

Disciplines

Education | Mathematics | Medicine and Health Sciences

Keywords

academic research, educational development, hypothesis testing, mathematics, research work, student, aptitude, article, career, education program, experiment, graduate student, human, mathematics, medical research, methodology, priority journal, responsibility, science, skill, teaching, technology, Education, Graduate, Humans, Research, Research Design, Students, Teaching

Scopus ID

80051894946

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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