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Guide Overview
Capstone Experiences

Guide to Capstone Experiences

Version 1. March 01, 2022

Description
Benefits
Effective Practices
Assessments
Resources
Evidence

A capstone experience is a multi-faceted project that results in a product, prototype, detailed solution, and/or presentation, and that serves as a culmination of a student’s undergraduate education. A capstone experience may be an individual project or a group project completed through a course, an independent study, or an external research experience or internship. Capstone experiences typically require students to “synthesize and integrate cumulative knowledge; apply learning and create new knowledge; work independently, bringing their own ideas to their work; present the results of the capstone work to an audience; meet rigorous professional and disciplinary standards; [and] reflect on their own development.” (Egan et al.) This section provides guidance on how to weigh the benefits of different capstone structures, provide departmental support for such experiences, and engage students in them. See the sections on Undergraduate Research and Internships for guidance on how to provide students with those specific types of capstone experiences.

Benefits

Capstone experiences provide opportunities for students to synthesize previous experiences and gain skills and competencies that may not be found elsewhere in the curriculum, including independence, project management, time management, research, communication, producing a final product, and, in some cases, working in teams. Capstone projects can provide opportunities for students to grapple with and develop skills needed to solve complex, open-ended, real-world problems that are generally not found in other courses, and thus prepare students to address the pressing issues facing society. Capstone projects can tackle open-ended, real-world problems that are generally not found in other courses. Capstone experiences have been identified as a high-impact practice and can be a powerful tool for recruiting and retention, particularly for students from

. They provide excellent career preparation for students who are entering the workforce as well as those who are continuing to graduate study. A capstone course can also serve as a vehicle for assessing your

and providing a summative assessment of your undergraduate physics program.

The Cycle of Reflection and Action

Where are you and what are you trying to accomplish?

Who should be involved?

What will you do?

How did it go and what comes next?

To be intentional about change, a department must have a clear understanding of its present situation and a vision for what it would like to become. Our cycle of self-reflection questions will help your department start conversations and structure thinking about how to get from where you are to where you want to be.

The Cycle of Reflection and Action will help you put the EP3 Guide to work for your department.

Learn more about the Cycle of Reflection and Action and how it can help your department.

Effective Practices

Weigh the benefits of different structures for capstone experiences
1. Construct broadly agreed-upon
  for your capstone course.
  Allow for a wide variety of projects that might include theoretical, experimental, or computational research; internships; equipment design and development; historical research in physics; and development and testing of instructional materials.
  Provide flexibility for students to incorporate external projects or create projects as part of the course; at the same time, unify expectations for all students. For instance, provide examples of ways that
  might be met by an external project and by a project done as part of the course.
  Consider integrating an evaluation component (e.g., a final paper, presentation, design review, and/or examination based on
  ) into the capstone course to provide overall program assessment for your department.
  Consider the advantages of a capstone course or seminar (e.g., equal availability to all students, consistency and oversight of student activities and experiences, and ability to construct activities to meet
  ), as well as possible disadvantages (e.g., additional credit requirements, scheduling and space issues, and constraints on the range of activities or the duration of the experience). Consider these pros and cons in the context of local considerations such as the number of majors per year, your department’s ability to integrate capstone experiences into the existing curriculum, the availability of staffing for a new course, and the capacity of majors to add courses or credits.
2. Establish standards for what types of activities will fulfill your capstone experience requirements, perhaps by developing
  for the capstone experience, with broad agreement from the faculty.
  Establish a process for students to use independent study projects, research experiences, internships, or other projects as part of a capstone experience. See the sections on Undergraduate Research and Internships for guidance on how to provide students with these specific types of capstone experiences.
  Provide flexibility in which types of activities students may use for their capstone experience (e.g., individual one- or two-semester research experiences on or off campus,
  or other research opportunities, internships, course-based research projects in physics and related fields), while ensuring that these activities meet departmental standards.
  Establish and publicize robust processes for students to demonstrate their fulfillment of your capstone experience requirements, to ensure that all students understand how to take advantage of capstone opportunities.
  Consider adding supplementary components to research experiences, internships, or other projects in order to address all
  for capstone experiences. For example, presentation skill development could be addressed by having students give a separate presentation to the department; report generation could be addressed by requiring all students to submit a report to be assessed by the department; and/or group dynamics training could be required before the start of a research experience, internship, or project to address outcomes related to effective teamwork.
  See the section on Internships for further guidance on how to learn about and make connections with local STEM employers to create internship opportunities for your students and, if appropriate, to solicit funding for student projects. Discuss with everyone who is organizing or conducting internships for physics majors the
  for your capstone experience and how their internships might meet these outcomes. Consider working with an
  to ensure that internships meet student learning outcomes.
  To provide a larger number of students with an authentic research experience that can contribute to their capstone experience, consider implementing course-based research experiences (CUREs) (see the Section on Undergraduate Research).
  Consider the advantages of independent capstone experiences outside of a course structure (e.g., increased flexibility for students to pursue their own interests, flexibility in the timing and duration of experiences, and fewer courses that your department needs to offer) as well as possible disadvantages (e.g., reliance on students finding and completing research or internship experiences, and non-uniformity of quality of student experiences). Consider these pros and cons in the context of local considerations such as the number of majors, the capacity of faculty to supervise independent projects, and the capacity of your department or institution to find internships or external research experiences for students.
3. Develop explicit strategies for recruiting students from
  into capstone experiences and supporting them. Recognize that a
  approach is insufficient to ensure that these students can participate and have positive experiences in capstone experiences. See the section on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for details.
  Consider making a capstone experience a requirement for majors, in order to ensure that all students take advantage of this learning opportunity. Take care to ensure that the requirements of your capstone experience are not too onerous for students with other commitments, e.g., work, family, and/or a second major.
  If your department does not require capstone experiences for all majors, address
  to ensure that the process for recruiting and selecting students to participate in these experiences is fair and equitable. Systematically track which students are participating in your capstone experiences, and look for and address sources of inequity.
  Allow flexibility in requirements to tailor each student’s project to their skills, interests, and post-graduation plans.
Establish and sustain departmental support for your capstone experiences
1. Construct broadly agreed-upon departmental goals for your capstone experiences.
  Identify important skills that are not provided elsewhere in the curriculum but that can be developed through capstone experiences.
  Establish appropriate and consistent
  and expectations for capstone experiences, with broad agreement from the faculty.
  Establish a process for approving capstone projects proposed by students. When evaluating proposed projects, consider how the project meets learning objectives for capstone experiences agreed upon by the department and whether the proposal includes a realistic timeframe for success and identifies resources needed. Consider students’ outside constraints (e.g., work and family commitments) and establish flexible guidelines that take these constraints into consideration.
  Determine how your capstone experiences can address
  (e.g., ability to mentor and be mentored and/or ability to develop and pitch a scientific idea) and skills you want your majors to learn (e.g., scientific writing or research skills).
  Construct broadly agreed-upon and consistent mechanisms for evaluation of capstone experiences.
2. Establish clear expectations and provide professional development for faculty supervision of capstone experiences, including all aspects of project design, approval, mentoring, and evaluation.
  Create periodic meetings or discussions for capstone supervisors to explicitly examine issues that come up when mentoring students in capstone experiences, perhaps using resources to facilitate discussions. See Resources in the section on Undergraduate Research.
  Integrate capstone supervision into instructional workload calculations. For example, consider classifying individual research or capstone mentoring as a course, or adjust teaching assignments for faculty and others who supervise student research or capstone projects.
  For capstone experiences integrated into a course, ensure that course development time and instructional workload credit for the course is appropriate.
  Consider making available, or advocating for, financial support for faculty supervising student work on capstone experiences, in the form of, e.g., research funds, mentor stipends for summer research, support for professional development related to mentoring, and increased travel support.
  Support faculty attendance at conferences related to providing capstone experiences, e.g., meetings of the Capstone Design Community or the American Society for Engineering Education. However, recognize that these conferences are typically focused on engineering programs whose capstone experiences may have different objectives from those of physics capstone experiences.
3. Establish guidelines for, e.g., safety, training, and access to equipment, space, and resources needed to complete capstone projects. Include approval processes when appropriate.
  Consider supplementing existing budgets (for, e.g., supplies) when capstone students join a faculty member’s research group.
  Consider using external partners (e.g., companies, national labs,
  ) as co-sponsors of projects, and meet with them to discuss learning goals, available projects, and the potential for recruiting future employees.
  Consider establishing a departmental budget line to provide funding for projects for which existing resources or apparatus are not available. A budget could be secured by, for instance, advocating with other STEM departments for support from your institution and/or by raising funds from alumni,
  , or other local industries, in partnership with your institution’s development or fundraising office.
Engage students
1. Support students in identifying and designing projects over which they have agency and ownership, and which integrate multiple components of their education and experiences.
  Collaborate with industry, alumni, or faculty in other departments to identify potential project topics.
  Consider projects that appeal to, build on, and expand students’ academic and professional experiences.
  Consider projects that address complex issues that matter to society and to students, e.g., climate change, renewable energy, public health, or medicine.
  Provide enough academic credit and sufficient time to allow students to have an immersive experience.
  Encourage students to reflect on how their previous coursework and physics knowledge tie into their project or project ideas.
  Help students connect their particular work and findings to larger problems in their research field, science as a whole, and society at large.
  Consider requiring that all projects include a public presentation of work, and invite people from inside and outside your department, such as other students, faculty and staff, the dean, alumni, and students’ families.
2. Publicize capstone projects to all physics students. For example, encourage students from all years to attend capstone presentations, and feature finished and nascent projects at departmental events and in classes for physics majors.
  Guide students in early years to imagine possible future projects or teams and shape their ideas into a realizable plan.
  Consider providing time in first- or second-year courses or laboratories for students to develop ideas for potential capstone projects.
  Incorporate capstone planning into the academic advising plan.
  Establish a process for students to develop proposals or plans for their capstone projects early, e.g., during their junior year or during summers. Ensure that students’ proposals or plans include identifying the basic idea of the project, assessing the feasibility of completion in the available time, laying out the initial approach, and making sure that all necessary resources will be available when needed.
3. Work with students to ensure that projects have clear and attainable goals and objectives and to set realistic timelines to accomplish tasks, given students’ skills, resources, constraints, and other commitments.
  Provide students with regular feedback and guidance to help keep them on track to completion.
  Provide multiple opportunities for students to receive iterative feedback on any written or oral component (e.g., proposal, research plan, thesis, paper, or presentation) of capstone experiences from
  and/or peers. See the section on Communication Skills for details.
  Help students understand the complexity of and need for persistence in open-ended projects.
  Engage students in all aspects of their projects, including design, construction, data taking, analysis, reflection, presentation, and overall management of the project and its timelines.
  Support students in finding and using equipment, facilities, and other resources and in reflecting on when they can use an existing apparatus or existing code rather than developing them from scratch.
  Guide students toward working independently by building confidence early in the experience (e.g., by balancing highly specific criticisms with highly specific accolades), providing regular feedback (e.g., at least weekly, recognizing the need for more feedback early in the project), and allowing students to assume more responsibility as the project progresses.
  Support students in developing skills such as overcoming frustration and recognizing when they need to do further research or ask for help.
  Encourage students to reflect regularly on the skills they are learning as the project progresses.
4. Mentor teams effectively with regular group and individual meetings (e.g., weekly meetings with the group and monthly meetings with each individual), using written feedback if scheduling meetings is an issue. Recognize that some individual mentoring is necessary, for instance in navigating team conflicts.
  Ensure that
  provide consistent messaging that team-based projects are opportunities for all students to engage in both areas in which they possess strengths and areas in which they have room to grow.
  Provide guidance for students on how to manage team projects by, e.g., having regular group meetings; dividing and rotating responsibilities and roles among team members; documenting activities, successes, and challenges; and holding each other accountable for work or deadlines.
  Provide guidance or training for students on how to work effectively in teams, including how to work with different kinds of people and how
  can affect group dynamics.
  See the section on Implementing Research-Based Instructional Practices for further guidance on how to facilitate students working together effectively in small groups.
  If necessary, help groups consider how to effectively incorporate new students into an existing project or team, by, e.g., assigning background reading, taking roles in group management, and/or describing explicit and implicit rules of behavior or engagement.

Programmatic Assessments

Evaluate which of the above Effective Practices you are implementing and track the results of implementing them.
Review or create
and
related to your capstone experiences. Analyze your current capstone experiences to determine how well they align with your program-level and course-level student learning outcomes.
Use surveys, focus groups, or exit interviews with current students and alumni to assess students’ perceptions of the relevance, coherence, and effectiveness of your capstone experience(s); how well the experience(s) met particular
; difficulties students had in completing your capstone experiences; and support students received from
and peers.
Survey faculty about their perceptions of the effectiveness of your capstone experiences.
If students participate in undergraduate research or internships for their capstone experiences, see the Programmatic Assessments in the sections on Undergraduate Research and Internships for assessments of these experiences and of how well your program is providing access to them.
Implement a robust plan for evidence-based assessment of the
included in your capstone experiences. Use the methods and tools described in the section on How to Assess Student Learning at the Program Level to evaluate the effectiveness of your capstone experiences in contributing to your program’s goals.
Use multiple measures to assess your capstone experiences’
, including final presentations and reports, achievement of milestones, and student self-assessments of learning and group dynamics. Where appropriate, use rubrics tailored to each outcome. See Resources below for guidance on assessing capstone courses.
Track over time the number of students completing your capstone course or fulfilling your capstone experience requirements, to determine the extent to which students are taking advantage of opportunities for capstone experiences.
Disaggregate all data by demographics to determine whether your capstone experience is serving all groups, or whether there are patterns of inequity in enrollment and success in the capstone course or achievement of the capstone experience requirements. If your number of majors is small, consider combining data over multiple years.
Provide capstone projects that integrate what students have learned throughout your program and assess the extent to which they do so.
See Resources below for guidance on using capstone courses for program assessment.

Resources

Capstone Design Community: A network of faculty, administrators, industry representatives, and students who are active in capstone engineering design courses. The Capstone Design Community holds regular conferences.
R. C. Hauhart and J. E. Grahe, Designing and Teaching Undergraduate Capstone Courses, John Wiley & Sons (2015). Provides an extensive survey and a wealth of information about capstone courses across many disciplines, including a chapter on using the capstone course for assessment, which includes information on rubrics and program assessment.
S. J. Carey (editor), The LEAP Challenge: Engaging in Capstones and Signature Work, Peer Review 20(2) (2018): A special issue on capstone courses, which includes articles on “Defining and Framing Signature Work on Your Campus” (Egan et al.) and “Assessing Signature Work” (Low et al.).

Evidence

Capstone experiences have been identified as one of 11 high-impact educational practices that increase student retention and engagement. There is also evidence that students from

are both the most likely to benefit from and the least likely to have access to these high-impact practices.