First-year ERM M.S. student Myrah Stockdale has received the 2015 Graduate Student Travel Scholarship from the Cognition and Assessment Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Myrah was awarded this scholarship in recognition of her paper Assessment of Global Engagement, Intercultural Knowledge & Competence, and Student Outcomes of Funded Undergraduate Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, to be presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of AERA being held in Chicago in April of 2015.
The research project involves the development of a series of assessment tools aimed at measuring undergraduate researchers’ global engagement and achievement. The assessments include instruments and rubrics measuring student global engagement, intercultural knowledge, and student achievement. These assessments will serve as student outcomes used in the evaluation of UNCG’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) of globalization and the effects of UNCG-wide global learning initiatives on key student outcomes. In particular, the assessments will generate outcomes used in the cross-sectional tracking of student global engagement and achievement across successive UNCG cohorts, and will provide student researchers, faculty-mentors, and the Undergraduate Research, Creativity, and Scholarship Office (URSCO) crucial information regarding the achievement of funded students throughout the research and creativity processes.
Although in her first year with ERM, Myrah is already gaining extensive hands-on assessment and research experience. Upon entering the M.S. Program, ERM’s Office of Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Services (OAERS) matched Myrah with an exclusive year-long graduate assistantship with UNCG’s Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Office. This assistantship has allowed Myrah to gain practical experience that merges her ERM training in methodology and assessment with real-world issues of tracking undergraduate student learning outcomes and evaluating institutional effectiveness.
Congratulations Myrah on this wonderful accomplishment!