KiSS (Keep in School Shape) Research Experience: An Introduction to Exploratory Data Analysis

This research experience gives ASU Online students an introduction to the increasingly popular and interdisciplinary field of data science that applies knowledge and insights to solve problems in various application domains. Working in a small group, students will conduct Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) on authentic educational research data. Part art and part science, EDA is the critical process of performing initial investigations on data so as to discover patterns, to spot anomalies, to test hypotheses, and to check assumptions with the help of summary statistics. In their research experience, students will also explore different types of effective data visualization and representation which is a key component of data analytics so that findings can be communicated effectively to a target audience.

This OURS experience consists of three major components: research on human subjects, learning sciences literature, and data analytics. At the beginning of the research experience, students will learn about the responsibilities that accompany doing research on human subjects and complete online Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) training to become certified to conduct analyses of human data. They will then be introduced to the learning sciences research that is the foundation of the Keep in School Shape Program (KiSS) Program, the research domain that will serve as the EDA “sandbox” for OURS students. The KiSS Program delivers mobile review activities daily to undergraduate students over academic breaks so that they do not forget what they’ve learned and need to maintain for their future coursework. Each review activity is housed in an online survey platform, allowing for the unobtrusive collection of data that characterizes a student’s engagement with the program. The data for each student (e.g., accuracy, confidence, answer choice, path through program resources) who participates in the KiSS Program is automatically logged in spreadsheets.

OURS students who take part in the KiSS Research experience will use recent KiSS Program data as their sandbox for learning how to conduct EDA and becoming familiar with some tools that are commonly used in data science. Students will attend online weekly sessions with the PI that will cover the protocol for analyzing human data, learning sciences research,  and data analytic techniques and visualizations.