Master's students or advanced undergraduate students who have already taken or do not wish to take the Agricultural and Consumer Economics Independent Study course to conduct a research project, can look into taking our higher level research oriented courses.
ACE 592ER: Economic Research Methods (Fall only)
ACE 592ER prepares advanced undergraduates and Master's students to do independent research in economics. Students develop and achieve personalized research goals for themselves; undergraduates are likely to complete an entire draft research paper, while Master's students are likely to complete a proposal for their thesis research. Students learn important topics and skills in economic research such as:
- the art of developing a good research question
- how to carry out iterated literature reviews through the research process
- research ethics
- protocols for research with human subjects
- responsible data management
- how to write an effective research article or proposal in the style of an economist
Credits: 3 for undergraduates, 4 for graduate students
Course schedule: Meets twice a week for an hour and 15 minutes
Prerequisite: None for MS students; undergraduates must be at least of junior standing, have completed a statistics or regression analysis class with a grade of B or higher, and obtain permission from the instructor.
ACE 471: Consumer Economic Policy (Fall only)
ACE 471 is a research course, which is part of the Ethnography of the University Initiative. Students research a policy-relevant issue that affects students at the University of Illinois. They learn how to formulate a research question, conduct focus groups, write an online survey, and analyze qualitative and quantitative data. Students will get experience writing research papers that will help them in future courses that require projects and papers. Former students have reported that they have put their research experience in ACE 471 on their resumes and discussed it in interviews. Students have the opportunity to archive their papers in the IDEALS database, which is available through the University of Illinois library. The papers written in earlier classes have been downloaded thousands of times.
Credits: 3 hours
Course schedule: Meets twice a week for an hour and 20 minutes
Prerequisite: ACE 100 or equivalent and junior standing
ACE 335: Food Marketing and Behavior
ACE 335 explores the food choices consumers make and what this means in the food and agribusiness industries. Students will also learn how to conduct basic research related to consumer behavior, including developing a research question, designing high quality surveys/experiments, and analyzing data.
Credits: 3 hours
Course Schedule: Meets twice a week for an hour and 20 minutes
Prerequisite: None
ACE 396: Honors Research or Thesis
ACE 396 offers individual research, special problems, thesis, development and/or design work under the direction of the Honors advisor. May be repeated as topics vary, up to 4 hours in the same term to a maximum of 12 hours in separate terms. Credit is not given for more than 12 hours of special problems, research, thesis and/or individual studies may be counted toward the degree.
Complete the Honors Research/Thesis Form with your Honors advisor.
Submit Form. Once it has been satisfactorily completed, you will then be sent the CRN to register for the independent study course.
Credits: 1 to 4 hours
Prerequisite: Junior standing, admissions to the ACES Honors Program, and consent of instructor.
ACE 295: Independent Study
ACE 295 offers individual or small group research, special problems, or other studies under the supervision of an appropriate member of the faculty. Credit for the independent study may range from 1 to 4 hours; the number of hours is negotiated with the supervising faculty member. It is eligible for both letter and S/U grading. May be repeated in the same or subsequent terms as topics vary. May be repeated up to 4 hours in a semester, but no more than 12 hours of special problems, research, thesis and/or individual studies may be counted toward the degree.
Learn more about ACE 295.
View ACE 295 on the course explorer.