Newswise — The Education Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research announces the 2021 recipients of its Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Awards and its Course (Re)Design Awards. The Collaborative Research Awards of $250 each support faculty-student projects that have potential for an impact on student continuing engagement in research and inquiry in education-related fields and for an impact on professional practice. The Course (Re)Design Awards of $500 each are presented to faculty members in education who seek to integrate undergraduate research into a course, either designing a new, research-infused course or redesigning an existing course to include a substantial undergraduate research component.

Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Awardees

D’Artagnan Kilgore (Idaho State University; mentor: JongHun Sung). The project will investigate running forms in collegiate cross-country runners, comparing individuals with a history of running-related injuries and those without such a history. The study’s data may assist coaches in teaching a better running form to novice runners.

Claire Conner (Boise State University; mentor: Lisa Beymer). The project aims to understand how virtual education may have affected the quality of instruction of preschool students during the COVID-19 pandemic and how the in-home setting for services during the pandemic may have changed parent-teacher collaboration.

Course (Re)Design Awardees

Lisa Beymer (Boise State University). The course Exceptionality in the Schools (ESP 250) will be redesigned to incorporate a guided research project on equity, access, or inclusion of P–12 students with disabilities and provide undergraduates in the course with faculty and current or past undergraduate researchers as mentors. A white paper on the process will be prepared for discussion among education faculty and for presentation at conferences or similar venues.

Anne Katz (Georgia Southern University). The course Early Language and Literacy Development (READ 3231) will be redesigned to provide an opportunity for preservice students to grow as literacy educators, build relationships with and enhance the learning of local students, and participate in a research project to build their problem-solving skills and literacy in middle school students.