Performing Department
AQUACULTURE & FISHERIES
Non Technical Summary
This project will address factors partially responsible for low retention including lack of self-confidence. Low self-esteem can lead to lack of motivation in the classroom (Belcher and Macari 1999). Specifically, poor social skills were a cause of poor academic achievement in pre-teen African American males (Taylor 1993). Taylor's results demonstrated a relation between improved self-image and improved academic performance. This project will employ a variety of study skills, in the context of experiential learning, to facilitate learning in a subject-specific area (fish taxonomy) and demonstrate self-worth. Increased self-image and improved academic success will lead to greater retention. Low retention has also been linked to poor organizational skills. Belcher and Macari (1999) found that incomplete assignments were partially due to poor organization and time management skills. Coon (2002) demonstrated that teaching time management skills, organization skills, conducting group activities, and goal-oriented work all served to improve students' success rates. Organizational skills are important in many academic fields, but are particularly important in the sciences. Planning and organization are hallmarks of effective agricultural scientists. The project will use calendars, weekly schedules, prioritization, and a time clock to teach students how to utilize time efficiently. The project will use tools such as list making and prioritizing listed items to maximize productivity. Students will use the opportunity to plan and execute travel for collecting and research trips to practice developing goals and objectives, and managing group projects. Probability of retention in college is related to a student's level of integration within the college. Tinto's Theory of Student Departure (1975, 1993) suggests that, "a higher degree of integration into the social and academic environments contributes to a greater degree of institutional and goal commitment and therefore, to lower dropout and higher completion rates." This project proposes to use undergraduate participation in research to foster student engagement and ultimately increase retention. Nagda et al. (1998)demonstrated that students, who experienced undergraduate research between their freshman and sophomore years, or sophomore and junior years, had higher retention rates than control groups. This project will put our USDA partners together with UAPB undergraduates for several weeks during the summer. We are collaborating with the H.K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center (SNARC). Over the past ten years, the PD has collaborated on various research projects with five different scientists from SNARC, including Drs. Steve Rawles and Adam Fuller. Drs. Rawles and Fuller have agreed to allow UAPB undergraduates to participate in ongoing research projects. This exposure to research should lead to greater engagement within the Aquaculture/Fisheries program, resulting in increased retention.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
This proposal will improve the quality of food and agricultural sciences education. In the context of developing a fish collection, undergraduate students will develop professional skills including mastery of a knowledge base in a subject-specific area, applying rules in new situations, team building skills, and goal setting, as well as research and communication skills. Undergraduate students will develop personal characteristics such as self-esteem, confidence, time management skills, organizational skills, and responsibility. Students at KSU will have the opportunity to develop their Ichthyology knowledge base through an internet-based course. All the Ichthyology students will gain an understanding and appreciation for fish diversity and the requirements for maintaining fish diversity. Objective 1: Each summer, four undergraduates will develop greater self-confidence by a) learning to identify fifty common fish species by sight and scientific name, b) conceiving, planning, and executing collecting trips, c) learning to use dichotomous keys to identify unknown fish specimens, and d) learning proper preservation techniques to incorporate fish into a teaching collection. Objective 2: These undergraduates will work during the summer and subsequent school year to develop a sense of professionalism by a) learning written and oral professional communications skills, b) learning time management and organizational skills necessary for professional and academic success, c) leaning microcomputer applications, and d) corresponding with ichthyologists and fishery scientists world-wide to secure donations to teaching collections. Objective 3: The students will be engaged in research early in their college career by a) learning the scientific method, b) participating in research projects with our USDA partners, c) learning basic statistical analysis and interpretation techniques, and d) learning to present research results at local and regional scientific meetings. Objective 4: The PD will improve his fish identification skills by a) working with a regionally-recognized expert in fish identification and taxonomy, b) acquiring books and monographs that fill gaps in the UAPB reference library, and c) acquiring dichotomous keys for globally important fishes. Objective 5: The PD will build capacity at UAPB and other minority serving institutions by a) offering an active specimen exchange program, b) working toward sharing teaching resources among HBCUs that teach Ichthyology, and c) developing an internet-based Ichthyology course for UAPB, CU, and KSU using distance delivery technology.
Project Methods
Each summer for three years, the project will hire four undergraduates who have just completed their freshman year at UAPB. Orientation will include an introduction to fish anatomy, ecology and taxonomy. The orientation will also include fish fixation and preservation techniques and the importance of accurate fish identification for teaching collections. The students will be taught basic study skills, such as flash cards, imaging, peg words, rhyming, first letter sentences, drilling, cadence, and repetition. During the orientation, students will be taught time management skills, such as use of calendars, list making, and prioritization. Students will be taught the scientific method, the parts of a scientific paper, basic statistics (including central tendency, variance, t-test, anovas, and simple linear regression), and interpretation of statistics. During the summer, groups of two undergraduates will plan a collecting trip outside of Arkansas. Each group will be responsible for identifying and justifying collection sites, generating a list of species to be collected, securing appropriate authorization to collect, making travel arrangements, planning budgets, generating lists of required equipment for collection and preservation of specimens, and planning travel routes and accommodations. The two teams will present their collecting trip plans to the PD, who will choose one of the two trips. The out of state colleting trip will occur toward the end of the summer. Students will also spend a portion of the summer participating in research projects underway at the Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center. Dr. Rawles, the fish nutritionist at SNARC, conducts feeding trials and production runs. Students who work with Dr. Rawles will gain experience feeding, handling, and weighing fish, as well as learn water-quality assessment techniques. Students may also work with Dr. Rawles on formulation and preparation of fish diets. Dr. Fuller is a geneticist and works with a variety of life history stages of fish. Students that work with Dr. Fuller will spawning techniques, larval fish rearing techniques, or basic pond aquaculture practices, as well as some basic molecular genetics laboratory techniques. In either case, students will be introduced to research, and learn the importance of following directions, implementation of a study design, and data collection and entry. Preserved specimens from the summer collecting trips will be stored at UAPB. During the fall and spring semesters following the summer collections, students will work part-time to sort, identify, and curate the specimens. During the spring semester, students will make a presentation on their collection trip or on some aspect of their research experience at a local or state scientific meeting (UAPB Research Forum, Arkansas Academy of Science, Arkansas Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, 1890 Research Director's Symposium, and the UAPB Rural Life Conference).