Author: Braden Bateman Major: Agricultural Business 

This spring semester, I began working on my undergraduate honors thesis. Through my research, I hope to learn what major factors influence whether or not students complete and graduate college with a degree in an honors program. Specifically, I am using student demographic data collected from the University of Arkansas to perform my research. 

I began this spring semester by acquiring the data I needed from the University of Arkansas. Thus far, I have narrowed down my data points to approximately 8,000 different data points with approximately 50 different demographic traits to analyze for each data point. With a NeuralTools analysis of the data points (along with the assistance of Dr. Michael Popp in performing the analysis), I intend to identify key factors that are associated with the success rates of college students in an honors program (success is defined as graduating college while successfully completing the requirements of the honor college to receive honors distinction). Once my final analysis and write-up is complete, universities will be able to use my findings to help assist in accepting potentially successful students into an honors program. 

My research, to this day, has primarily involved data manipulation in Microsoft Excel. Before I began the data manipulation, I thought that I knew a lot about how Excel works. Little did I know, my knowledge of Excel barely scratched the surface. There are so many more formulas one can use in Excel than I knew about that have been helpful in speeding up the process of narrowing down my initial data set of over 80,000 different students and their demographic traits. 

The process of narrowing down my data to analyze in the end has not been completely smooth though. At one point, I thought I was finally ready to perform the NeuralTools analysis on my final data set, but my faculty mentor, Dr. Jennie Popp, informed me that there was a new, updated data set that was available for me to use with more recent information. Basically, I had to start over from scratch and, once again, go through all of the sort, filter, and formula processes I had already gone through before. 

Thankfully, Dr. J. Popp has been extremely patient with me throughout this whole process. I had her as a professor for Introduction to Agricultural Macroeconomics, so I knew she would be excellent to work with, and I was thankful she was willing to be my faculty mentor for my undergraduate research. She was able to get in contact with the right people to acquire the data I needed to do my research in a timely manner. Dr. J. Popp has also helped me out with understanding all of the different formatting requirements for using formulas in Excel and how to utilize those formulas to help speed up the data manipulation process. 

Throughout the summer and into the fall semester, I plan to finalize my data set in order to run the NeuralTools analysis. Once my analysis is complete, I will compile my results in my final transcript to present my findings to my honors thesis board. I also intend to publish my findings in the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council and present my findings at the National Collegiate Honors Council annual conference.  

With the help of this Honors College Research Grant, I hope to help the academic community in finding more efficient and effective methods for identifying students who show high potential for academic success. I have also come to realize how much I enjoy research within the academic community, which has inspired me to continue my education after receiving my undergraduate degree to pursue a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics.