Scholarship & Research
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Item Surveying middle school computer science throughout the United States: a needs assessment for teachers(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2022) Firth, Olivia Rose; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Brittany FasyMiddle school computer science plays an important role in increasing student interest and engagement, as well as leveling the playing field for students as they enter high school. Computer science courses or the introduction of CS into other STEM courses is also a valuable opportunity to build higher order thinking and problem-solving skills that will serve students throughout their education. However, the state of middle school computer science (CS) has yet to be studied in depth. Particularly, research is needed to understand the challenges facing a diverse population of middle school CS teachers. With the goal of learning to better support CS teachers, we have performed interviews and surveys amongst teachers throughout the country to illustrate the state of middle school CS and CS teacher self-efficacy. This project fills in this gap by serving as a needs assessment for a difficult to reach population because the track to become a middle school CS teacher is not well-defined, and many of these teachers are new to the role or have taken it on as an additional responsibility.Item Supporting data-intensive environmental science research: data science skills for scientific practitioners of statistics(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2020) Theobold, Allison Shay; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Stacey Hancock; Stacey Hancock was a co-author of the article, 'How environmental science graduate students acquire statistical computing skills' in the journal 'Statistics education research journal' which is contained within this dissertation.; Stacey Hancock and Sara Mannheimer were co-authors of the article, 'Designing data science workshops for data-intensive environmental science research' submitted to the journal 'Journal of statistics education ' which is contained within this dissertation.; Stacey Hancock was a co-author of the article, 'Data science skills in data-intensive environmental science research: the case of Alicia and Ellie' submitted to the journal 'Harvard data science review' which is contained within this dissertation.The importance of data science skills for modern environmental science research cannot be understated, but graduate students in these fields typically lack these integral skills. Yet, over the last 20 years statistics preparation in these fields has grown to be considered vital, and statistics coursework has been readily incorporated into graduate programs. As 'data science' is the study of extracting value from data, the field shares a great deal of conceptual overlap with the field of Statistics. Thus, many environmental science degree programs expect students to acquire these data science skills in an applied statistics course. A gap exists, however, between the data science skills required for students' participation in the entire data analysis cycle as applied to independent research, and those taught in statistics service courses. Over the last ten years, environmental science and statistics educators have outlined the shape of the data science skills specific to research in their respective disciplines. Disappointingly, however, both sides of these conversations have ignored the area at the intersection of these fields, specifically the data science skills necessary for environmental science practitioners of statistics. This research focuses on describing the nature of environmental science graduate students' need for data science skills when engaging in the data analysis cycle, through the voice of the students. In this work, we present three qualitative studies, each investigating a different aspect of this need. First, we present a study describing environmental science students' experiences acquiring the computing skills necessary to implement statistics in their research. In-depth interviews revealed three themes in these students' paths toward computational knowledge acquisition: use of peer support, seeking out a 'singular consultant,' and learning through independent research. Motivated by the need for extracurricular opportunities for acquiring data science skills, next we describe research investigating the design and implementation of a suite of data science workshops for environmental science graduate students. These workshops fill a critical hole in the environmental science and statistics curricula, providing students with the skills necessary to retrieve, view, wrangle, visualize, and analyze their data. Finally, we conclude with research that works toward identifying key data science skills necessary for environmental science graduate students as they engage in the data analysis cycle.Item Using student perception of college environment for developing academic self-efficacy in engineering and computing education(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2021) Clark, Jennifer Irene; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Tricia SeifertNext Generation Experts (NGE) are needed to fill engineering and computing careers. Access to college degree programs in these disciplines has been identified as an important contribution in addressing this problem. Students enter university with varying levels of academic readiness based on environmental circumstances outside their control. In Montana, many communities are limited in their ability to provide advance math and science coursework with even fewer providing engineering or computer science topics. Montana State University (MSU) is the state's land grant institution is charged with educating the sons and daughters of Montana's working class citizens. This problem of practice study considers the experience of academically underprepared (AUP) students interested in engineering or computing with retention initiatives in the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering (NACOE). Understanding student perceptions of how the college environment influences academic self-efficacy development with engineering and computer science content can provide direction for retention programming. This qualitative study uses a complex theoretical framework, and phenomenography as a research approach to consider the range of student experience with an AUP retention program in the NACOE. Thirteen students participated in a study version of the AUP retention program which consisted of 6- topic focused, weekly meetings. Eight students provided feedback through a 1:1 interview following a semi-structured interview protocol. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using an iterative process introducing a shift in perspective related to the relationship between physiological states and their influence over mastery, vicarious, and social persuasion experiences. Physiological states sit in the space between environmental experiences continually shading engagement between the environment and student. Findings described how physiological states interact with mastery, vicarious, and social persuasion experiences. Environmental factors, including people, had an influence on the developing relationship between AUP students who participated in a study version of the AUP retention program. Demonstrating the importance of structure, this study showed the value of community in developing relationships between students and academic content. Normalizing the variety of academic readiness levels shifts from deficit thinking to an allowance of gracious space to begin a college degree from any point without a hidden script of expectation. Borrowing from the college athletics' programs, introducing a Redshirt year changes the game. The Redshirt in Engineering Consortium borrowed and implemented this idea to support recruitment and retention in AUP populations. AUP students are also the NGE in engineering or computing. It is the responsibility of current experts to teach them they have potential to be successful in these disciplines through inclusive environments.Item A Load Profile Management Integrated Power Dispatch Using a Newton-Like Particle Swarm Optimization Method(2014-10) Wang, Caisheng; Miller, Carol J.; Nehrir, M. Hashem; Sheppard, John W.; McElmurry, Shawn P.Load profile management (LPM) is an effective demand side management (DSM) tool for power system operation and management. This paper introduces an LPM integrated electric power dispatch algorithm to minimize the overall production cost over a given period under study by considering both fuel cost and emission factors. A Newton-like particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm has been developed to implement the LPM integrated optimal power dispatch. The proposed Newton-like method is embedded into the PSO algorithm to help handle equality constraints while penalty/fitness functions are used to deal with inequality constraints. In addition to illustrative example applications of the proposed Newton-like PSO technique, the optimization method has been used to realize the LPM integrated optimal power dispatch for the IEEE RTS 96 system. Simulation studies have been carried out for different scenarios with different levels of load management. The simulation results show that the LPM can help reduce generation costs and emissions. The results also verify the effectiveness of the proposed Newton-like PSO method.Item Active learning animations for the theory of computation(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2002) Grinder, Michael ThomasItem A/B Testing Web Analytics Data [dataset](2014-07) Young, Scott W. H.This dataset is associated with the following article: Young, Scott WH (2014) Improving Library User Experience with A/B Testing: Principles and Process. Weave: Journal of Library User Experience. University of Michigan Library. doi:10.3998/weave.12535642.0001.101Item VideSupra : an astrophysics simulator(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2011) Nelson, Grant Jared; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Denbigh StarkeyFor small satellite development groups building, testing and launching satellites can be very expensive. Since satellites can have no physical contact while in space testing satellites before launch is very important. To test satellites at low cost software simulation should be used. Several professional software simulation packages exist but they can be expensive to licensed and be trained for. The goal of this paper is to describe a free open source astrophysics simulator that can be used for testing and prototyping. The simulator must be flexible and customizable so that it can be modified for each satellite project. The solution is VideSupra. VideSupra is a software simulator with a built in package for astrophysics simulation. VideSupra is a plug and play application so can be quickly modified and extended as needed. For small satellite development groups VideSupra will provide the needed low cost testing tool.