Hello all! It has been a minute, but lots of exciting things are happening with our research project:

• You might have seen our newest post from Ally, our undergraduate student research assistant for this project. I’m so excited that Ally is joining the team. She has a lot of great student engagement experiences to draw from and already has been a great addition to the team.
• We got our sample! In August, I spoke with Leigh about how to pull a data set for us to sample from. It was more complicated than I naively expected, but also a good lesson on how institutions like Penn State think, track, and record student engagement opportunities. With this sample, we can begin recruiting, once we feel confident about our interview protocol. A blog post is forthcoming, explaining how we decide what students would fall into our sample.

• 

  Ally and I were so jazzed on Friday, we decided to pilot the interview protocol. I was able to interview Ally about her student engagement experiences. The interview was about an hour and fifteen minutes long. That means we’re in the ballpark with time, and we both learned a lot from the experience. This upcoming week, we’ll be tweaking the interview questions and then piloting the revised questions with some students we know.

• We were offered our first presentation opportunity. Ally and I will be speaking on the progress of this project at the upcoming Student Engagement Network Summit, on November 13. More details on the Summit are forthcoming, but it will be a great chance to connect with other university colleagues and share some results of our first interviews.

As you can see, we’re moving and grooving. Stay tuned for more information and updates!