In May of 2014, six groups of students from Armenian universities started their projects with their research advisor faculty members on various topics. Within this new initiative, OSFA aimed to promote student involvement in research projects that develop their academic skills, critical thinking and scientific perspective, and thus prepare for future professional career. Students from various universities in Armenia joined with their peers and faculty members to conduct research on education issues, cultural studies, religion, psychology, mathematics. The projects are diverse and students are excited to engage into real field work and produce research results.
“This is one of the most popular problems in the world and there are many scientists working on it, as the solution of this problem can help us reach results in medicine, for instance, where the base of creating the tomographic and sonographic equipment is the solutions of these problems” says Yuri Ashrafyan, a math student at Yerevan State University, who will examine the inverse problems for the Sturm-Liouville boundary problem. He presented his paper at international thematic conferences in the UK and Spain and was highly praised by peer reviewers of the paper.
Seven students from American University of Armenia joined into a group to investigate the causes for buying academic papers by Armenian students.
“One of our concerns is that education and business merge with each other having a negative impact on the quality of education. Particularly, this kind of cheating has a negative influence on students’ academic ethics, writing, and research skills. As a result, written assignments do not serve their main purpose and students miss the chance to develop their academic and professional skills”, mention the students in their research proposal.
Another interesting research work was done by a student from Yerevan State University through which he had looked at the impact of the educational reforms in Armenia. Looking into mechanisms of turning reform policies into daily classroom practices was the main focus of his research.
“I looked at the concept of democratic classroom, whereby I meant participatory environment, where the student is not the object of the teaching/learning process, but rather an integral participant.
Students from the Department of History at Yerevan State University as part of their research on cultural aspects of public transport in Armenia will observe the interior and exterior decoration of transportation means. They say the “transport has ceased to function as a mere means of transportation. It has turned or rather has been turned into an advertisement and promotional tool. We believe that the discussion of cultural texts of the interior and exterior decoration of transport vehicles will yield important and interesting material of both state propaganda and public sentiments and moods”.
Topical research questions were placed for the analysis by the students from YSU Psychology Department. They focused on the perceptions and attitudes of young people their life scenarios in terms of education, labor and living location depending on Armenia’s membership to economic unions.
“It is disappointing to have found that 90.5 % of the respondents are not aware of the EU/EEU processes underway in the country. It is even more frustrating to see that only 59% of the youth see their in the country, while the rest want to immigrate predominantly to Russia” write students in the paper
Another group of three students examined public perceptions over religiosity processes in contemporary times.
“We concluded in our research that religious identity had yielded its strongly held positions in the context of national identities and in modern times stands in either contrastive or cooperative relation with the national identities” says Garik Atanesyan, the leader for the team.
Full versions of research papers of the students are accessible here.
More information about this program can be inquired from Anna Gevorgyan, Program Coordinator at OSFA by email [email protected].