First- and second-year gerontology students: Research activities heightened connectedness to learning

The Importance of Scientific Publishing: Teaching an Undergraduate How to Swim the Entire Length of the Pool

Six Steps for Cultivating Successful Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate research involves experiential learning methods that helps animal science students gain critical thinking skills. There is high demand for these opportunities. For example, 77.9% of incoming freshmen in the Department of Animal Sciences & Industry at Kansas State University in Fall 2017 and Fall 2018 planned to conduct research sometime during their undergraduate career (422 of 542 students). Conventional, one-on-one mentoring methods in the department were only serving 1.7% of the undergraduate population (21 of 1,212 students). This creates a unique challenge of increasing the number of undergraduate research opportunities, while maintaining the impact of individualized experiential learning. One method to address this challenge is the incorporation of a course-based research program. In this model, research projects are conducted during a conventional semester during scheduled classroom hours, with project components divided into 3 sections: (1) research preparation, including compliance requirements, hypothesis testing, experimental design, and protocol development; (2) data collection; and (3) data interpretation and dissemination. Students collect data as a team, but individually develop their own research abstract and poster to maintain a high level of experiential learning. By teaching multiple sections of this course per semester and incorporating the concepts into existing laboratories, 13.5% of students in the department completed undergraduate research in the 2018–2019 academic year (162 of 1,197 students). To monitor the quality of these experiences, student critical thinking ability was assessed using the online Critical Thinking Basic Concepts & Understanding Test (Foundation for Critical Thinking, Tomales, CA). Undergraduate research experiences increased (P = 0.028) the growth in student critical thinking score, but the type of research experience did not influence assessed skills (P > 0.281). Thus, course-based undergraduate research experiences may be an option for growing the quantity and quality of undergraduate research experience in animal science.

Students majoring in Engineering Technology programs at Western Washington University (USA) have many opportunities to participate in unique undergraduate research experiences and innovative laboratory programs. This paper describes the methods used by the faculty to integrate innovative design experiences into the undergraduate programs at Western Washington University. The CIM projects in the Manufacturing Engineering Technology program are used to illustrate how undergraduate students can have their own creativity and learning stimulated by creating learning tools for K-12 programs. Faculty workload issues are also discussed. Finally, the paper describes another step in the integration process at Western Washington University-a new curricular model that will focus on high-end CAE packages and rapid prototyping to enhance laboratory experiences and undergraduate research programs.

Engaging in undergraduate research experiences is known to have broad and positive impacts on college students. Despite the benefits, achieving faculty buy-in and support can be challenging even when faculty have strong research funding. In order to understand how to better support undergraduate research programs, we applied quantitative models to explore how the impact of research funding is mediated by faculty beliefs about undergraduate research mentoring in STEM disciplines. The results indicate that faculty characteristics and beliefs about the benefits and barriers of mentoring undergraduate students in research impact the number of students mentored even when accounting for research funding levels of the individual faculty. Practical recommendations are presented based on the models from this research project in order to provide insight into how centers or units on a campus may work with faculty to support and encourage mentoring of undergraduates in research in the biomedical sciences.

As studies repeatedly show the benefits of students participating in undergraduate research, off-campus research opportunities have become increasingly competitive. In order to provide our students with research experiences, students from Murray State University and Centre College engaged in a year-long cross-institutional undergraduate research experience. In this paper, we summarize our experience and provide some useful perspectives in mentoring students in cross-institutional undergraduate research. We present effective methods for improving distance collaboration and strategies for eliciting the best research from students.

While undergraduate research has been shown to be a high-impact educational practice, it is logistically impossible for all undergraduate biology majors to have long-term faculty-mentored research experience. Therefore, biology educators and researchers must devise opportunities to engage more students in undergraduate research outside of working directly in their labs. Course-Based Research Experiences (CREs), structured as authentic research experiences, are one such opportunity. In this work, we describe the effects of a CRE with biomedical relevance on students' research skills, attitudes toward science, and perceptions of scientific research and scientific researchers. Results demonstrate that students gained experience in independent research skills including designing their own research project, being accountable for part of a project, and writing a research proposal. Students' perceptions of scientific research and researchers, assessed by the Draw-A-Researcher Task, did not show changes among the whole group, but individual analysis yielded meaningful results related to students' personal changes in how they perceived research and researchers, including their perception of themselves as researchers. This work demonstrates the substantial impact of CREs on upper-level biology undergraduate and graduate students.

Course-Embedded Research Experiences (CURE) are known to have a variety of benefits for both students and their instructors. However, there are few reports of the benefits of research experiences for undergraduate Kinesiology students. The purpose of the present study was to examine the benefits of CURE empirically in a cohort of undergraduate Kinesiology students. One section of the course engaged in the CURE project and the other section engaged in a traditional class project. Student perceptions of the benefits of the project, student engagement, and interest in advanced studies in kinesiology were compared between the two forms of course delivery. There were no statistically significant differences in student engagement or desire to pursue advanced degrees. However, there were increased benefits in skills gained for the CURE project. The CURE section (3.70 ± 0.33) demonstrated greater perceived benefits overall compared to the Traditional section (3.53 ± 0.23; W = 40.00, p = 0.05). Exposing these students to research for the first time was also a positive outcome. Ultimately, the results continue to support that CURE is a beneficial pedagogical tool; however, traditional class projects may be equally beneficial. Future studies should examine the benefits of CURE as compared to other pedagogical models and opportunities for research participation.

Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) in STEM fields expose students to scientific research and are thought to increase student retention in STEM. We developed a pre/post survey and administered it to participants of the Harvard Forest Summer Research Program in Ecology (HF-SRPE) to evaluate effectiveness of these programmatic goals. Between 2005 and 2015, the survey was sent to all 263 HF-SRPE participants; 79% completed it. Results, controlled for prior experiences, revealed significant improvements across all learning goals. Prior laboratory research experience and perception of being a respected member of a research team were positively associated with gains in research skills and abilities to do and present research. Although the pre/post surveys did not indicate changes in students’ goals of pursuing STEM careers (or, more narrowly, ecological ones), the positive learning gains suggest that students with prior interests in STEM fields take advantage of UREs to solidify further their aspirations in STEM.

The drive to broaden equitable access to undergraduate research experiences has catalyzed the development and implementation of course‐based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). Biology education has prioritized embedding CUREs in introductory labs, which are frequently taught by graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). Thus, a CURE GTA is expected not only to teach but also to support novice student researchers. We know little about how GTAs perform as research mentors in a CURE, or how the quality of their mentorship and support impacts undergraduate students. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted a phenomenological study of an introductory biology CURE, interviewing 25 undergraduate students taught by nine different GTAs at a single institution. We used self‐determination theory to guide our exploration of how students' autonomous motivation to engage in a CURE is impacted by perceptions of GTA support. We found that highly motivated students were more likely to experience factors hypothesized to optimize motivation in the CURE, and to perceive that their GTA was highly supportive of these elements. Students with lower motivation were less likely to report engaging in fundamental elements of research offered in a CURE. Our findings suggest that GTAs directly impact students' motivation, which can, in turn, influence whether students perceive receiving the full research experience as intended in a CURE. We contend that practitioners who coordinate CUREs led by GTAs should therefore offer curated training that emphasizes supporting students' autonomous motivation in the course and engagement in the research. Our work suggests that GTAs may differ in their capacity to provide students with the support they need to receive and benefit from certain pedagogical practices. Future work assessing innovative approaches in undergraduate biology laboratory courses should continue to investigate potenital differential outcomes for students taught by GTAs.

Research in the field of medicine heightens the extent of understanding and also inculcates evidence-basedpractice and further enhances clinical skills. The impact of research ranges from prevention to newer andalternative treatment modalities. However undergraduate student research experience is plagued by a numberof obstacles. This study aims to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, practice, and the barriers towards researchamong dental undergraduate students. An online questionnaire consisting of 16 questions which includeddemographic details, and questions regarding their knowledge and perception of barriers towards research.The study was conducted among undergraduate students of a private dental institute. Data was collectedfrom filled questionnaires and analysed using SPSS software. A total of 169 undergraduate dental studentsparticipated in the online survey. A majority of students (78.3%) expressed a positive attitude towardswillingness to conduct research. Barriers for research were lack of time being overburdened with education/exams (30.7%), lack of allocated research time (25.5%), difficulty in following up study subjects (22.6%),inadequate financial support (21.9%%) and difficulty in obtaining approval (22.6%). Only 9.4% of the studypopulation chose lack of interest as a barrier towards conducting research. Majority of the participants hadsufficient knowledge regarding research and expressed a positive attitude toward participation in researchactivity. Major barriers were lack of time, difficulty in patient follow-up and inadequate funds.

: The Undergraduate Research Experience in Ocean/Marine Science program supports active participation by underrepresented undergraduate students in remote sensing and Ocean/Marine Science research training activities. The program is based on a model for undergraduate research programs supported by the National Science Foundation. The URE project features mentors, research projects, and professional development opportunities. It is the long-term goal of the URE in Ocean/Marine Science to provide an active research experience as an effective way to attract talented undergraduates and retain them in careers in ocean and marine science. In addition, this program supports the involvement of students from the African Countries of Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria. Funds were leveraged with the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant # ANT-0944255 [2].

This panel proposal outlines the need, and significance of evaluating formal presentations of an undergraduate student's current research for the ACM International Student Research Poster Contest.

Undergraduate research (UR) as a high-impact practice has been increasingly embedded in the curriculum. However, there is a limited understanding of how undergraduates make sense of their research experiences amid an absence of student voice in the literature. This study investigated what students perceived as significant UR experiences through student co-researchers conducting critical incident interviews with fellow students and participating in collaborative analysis. The findings show that students generally perceived their research experiences as positive and associated significant experiences with achievement, ownership, challenges, real-world relevance, collaboration, and to a lesser extent, identification with research. Student co-researchers also provided unique insights such as students paying more attention to the utility value of their UR experiences. This article’s main contribution is the discovery of a sense of authenticity in UR from students’ perspectives emphasising more real-world relevance while less ‘being’ and ‘becoming’, which created challenges to form a researcher identity. The findings also point to both synergies and tensions between achieving authenticity and pursuing utility value, implying the need for enhancing UR through redesigned mentorship in the future.

The themed Fall 2024 issue of Scholarship & Practice of Undergraduate Research (SPUR): Career Readiness features content addressing career skills obtained through undergraduate research. The collection offers two open-to-read articles that contribute to our understanding of the current state of career readiness as achieved through undergraduate research and transferable skills. It also includes four additional articles, including writing skills, career readiness from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs, mentoring; and transfer students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).