St. James Ballroom
Strategies for Guiding Student Collaborators in Providing Productive Feedback on Scientific Work (303915)
Megan Higgs, Montana State University
Laurie Rugemer, Montana State University
*Julia L. Sharp, Colorado State University
Keywords: Training graduate students, feedback on scientific work, communication
Critically reviewing scientific and technical work is an essential skill for the applied statistician. This skill is often missed, or not emphasized enough, in training student collaborators. Students may be given opportunities to review the work of others, but are rarely provided more formal guidance on how to provide productive feedback, and how to do so efficiently. Similar strategies and approaches apply to the review of scientific work written by non-statistician collaborators and the work of student collaborator peers, possibly in the form of a statistical report. In this poster, we highlight strategies and structure for mentoring students on how to critically review scientific works. Topics related to the review process include understanding scientific writing components, establishing expectations with collaborators regarding the review before it is complete, choosing constructive language, and respecting discipline differences in expectations and language. The overarching topics of advocating for broad review from statisticians beyond just the analysis and results and considering peer review as a crucial part of a science education are also included.