Community: A Meta Review on Its Importance to the Faculty Research Team and the Graduate Students We Study

Audience Level: 
All
Institutional Level: 
Higher Ed
Special Session: 
Research
Abstract: 

This session is for you if you are 1) searching for ways to remain committed to the quality of your program while pursuing your research interests or 2)  interested in hearing a survey of research focused on online EdD students' attitudes toward writing and their perceptions of their writing abilities!

Extended Abstract: 

This session is for you if you are searching for ways to remain committed to the quality of your program while also pursuing your research interests! This session is ALSO for you if you are interested in hearing a survey of research studies focused on online EdD students' attitudes toward writing and their perceptions of their writing abilities!

In this session, we will share how we created a structure that promoted and supported faculty research, presentations, and publications. We will share the specifics of this structure and how we leveraged the strengths of our research team to be productive, even while managing our day-to-day responsibilities. 

Additionally, we will share the focus of our research and what we have found. Some highlights include that there is a mismatch between student and advisor perceptions of their writing abilities, that students respond to and appreciate feedback differently, and that community is sometimes the only reason students do not give up on themselves or their program. Of course, with all research findings there are implications and recommendations; we are excited to share those in an effort to support other faculty and program directors in their quests to support graduate student researchers. 

We will take you back to the onset of designing our research team and the steps that we took in that endeavor. Additionally, we will start at the beginning of what it takes to curate a collaborative research agenda and how one study blossomed into multiple. The secret, both in the formation of our research team and in being prolific researchers is what we found when conducting the actual research on our students. Be sure to attend our session to learn the secret!

Just kidding; we know y’all are busy. The secret is community. We fostered a community of faculty researchers by prioritizing our research interests, holding ourselves accountable, and celebrating our progress. In the research on our students, we found that their communities were equally important to their progress and success. We will share the details of what these communities look like in our session. 

Level of Participation: 

We expect that attendees of our session will have a range of questions. To foster engagement, we will open a virtual space for audience members to submit questions and will also offer a Q&A period at the end of our presentation. We have a wealth of information and lessons learned to share and look forward to interacting with session attendees. 

Session Goals: 

We hope that attendees will leave our session invigorated in how they can create faculty research teams. We also want session participants to learn from our research on graduate student writers to inform their practices.

 
Conference Track: 
Research, Evaluation, and Learning Analytics
Session Type: 
Education Session
Intended Audience: 
Administrators
Design Thinkers
Faculty
Instructional Support
Students
Training Professionals
Technologists
All Attendees
Researchers