Viewpoints on Undergraduate Research Among Nursing Students Conducting Q-Methodology Studies.

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

Undergraduate research programs have become increasingly important to the teaching and learning agenda of American institutions of higher education. A vast body of literature supports the need for hands-on teaching strategies in and outside of the classroom. In many ways, undergraduate research programs are a response to that need. Furthermore, many institutions of higher education encourage and foster the engagement of undergraduate research initiatives for a plethora of purposes; however, efforts have been met with varied effectiveness. The researcher conducted this study, at two private Liberal Arts colleges and nine research programs, to investigate current undergraduate research practices at the program level. Through 40 individual interviews and document analysis procedures, the researcher determined the design and structure of each research program at institutions that were nominated by national leaders in undergraduate research. The researcher also identified the benefits and challenges associated with conducting ongoing undergraduate research programs as perceived by participating students, faculty mentors, and administrators. The researcher further explored institutional resources that are necessary to support and sustain ongoing research endeavors. Student and faculty roles in undergraduate research as well as student assessment procedures were also examined. This research revealed significant weaknesses in the areas of formulating intended student learning outcomes, ongoing assessment of student learning, faculty rewards and incentives, and overall program structure. Multiple forms of data indicated that formulated student learning outcomes were not used as a foundation for the learning process. Data also revealed that limited assessment tools were used throughout the research experience and that those assessments were not directly used to improve student learning. Also, most faculty reported intrinsic benefits for conducting undergraduate research, but were not monetarily rewarded by their institution.

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.

Undergraduate research experiences are a "high impact" educational practice that confer benefits to students. However, little attention has been paid to understanding faculty motivation to mentor undergraduate students through research training programs, even as the number of programs has grown, requiring increasing numbers of faculty mentors. To address this, we introduce a conceptual model for understanding faculty motivation to mentor and test it by using empirical data to identify factors that enable and constrain faculty engagement in an undergraduate research program. Using cross-sectional survey data collected in 2013, we employed generalized linear modeling to analyze data from 536 faculty across 13 research institutions to examine how expected costs/benefits, dispositional factors, situational factors, previous experience, and demographic factors predicted faculty motivation to mentor. Results show that faculty who placed greater value on the opportunity to increase diversity in the academy through mentorship of underrepresented minorities were more likely to be interested in serving as mentors. Faculty who agreed more strongly that mentoring undergraduate students was time consuming and their institution's reward structures were at odds with mentoring, or who had more constrained access to undergraduate students were less likely to be interested in serving as mentors. Mid-career faculty were more likely than late-career faculty to be interested in serving as mentors. Findings have implications for improving undergraduate research experiences, since the success of training programs hinges on engaging highly motivated faculty members as mentors.

There is little doubt that the Internet has transformed the world in which we live. Information that was once archived in bricks and mortar libraries is now only a click away, and people across the globe have become connected in a manner inconceivable only 20 years ago. Although many scientists and educators have embraced the Internet as an invaluable tool for research, education and data sharing, some have been somewhat slower to take full advantage of emerging Web 2.0 technologies. Here we discuss the benefits and challenges of integrating Web 2.0 applications into undergraduate research and education programs, based on our experience utilizing these technologies in a summer undergraduate research program in synthetic biology at Harvard University. We discuss the use of applications including wiki-based documentation, digital brainstorming, and open data sharing via the Web, to facilitate the educational aspects and collaborative progress of undergraduate research projects. We hope to inspire others to integrate these technologies into their own coursework or research projects.

Institutional support is critical for establishing and maintaining an undergraduate research program. This paper discusses some of the challenges that one may encounter when seeking to institutionalize undergraduate research, including budget and personnel issues. It provides various views and ideas from schools that have been successful in securing institutional support for undergraduate research, and makes some suggestions of rationales for effectively arguing on behalf of undergraduate research. This paper is based on ideas generated at a breakout session at the 2012 national conference on Trends in Undergraduate Research in the Mathematical Sciences. Additional resources for a more in-depth discussion of the ideas presented in this paper are also provided.

Among educators, the promotion of undergraduate research is a much debated topic, with issues arising from questions as to how it can be integrated with undergraduate degree programmes and how to structure its delivery. Undergraduate research is also considered important by employers, as can be seen in case of the computer game development and visual effects industries who demand that universities produce graduate software developers with not only vocational but also with rather advanced research skills. In this paper we present a successful undergraduate research course, implemented for one of our undergraduate degree programmes. It includes teaching and learning focussed on the nature of small team research and development as encountered in the creative industries dealing with computer graphics, computer animation and game development. We discuss our curriculum design and issues in conducting undergraduate research that we have identified through several iterations of the course.

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.

The Informatics Skunkworks program provides a new framework for engaging undergraduates in research experiences, with a focus on the interface of data science and materials science.The program seeks to provide authentic research, engaged personal learning, and professional development while also being efficient, accessible, and scalable.Initially developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, participation continues to grow, with over 90 students engaged in research or training activities during the Fall 2021 semester from 4 institutions.The Skunkworks focuses on reducing barriers to engagement for mentors and students in undergraduate research by replacing bespoke and ad-hoc approaches with efforts and infrastructure that are reusable and scalable, including simplified standardized recruiting methods, online modular training resources, flexible undergraduate accessible software tools, long-term research projects with many similar but distinct components to engage large teams, and support from a learning community.For example, new students have the option to participate in a modular, self-paced, online onboarding curriculum that teaches students the basic skills needed for most data science projects, thereby dramatically reducing the mentor time needed to engage students with limited background in machine learning research.Projects are authentic research challenges that strive to allow for large flexible teams, thereby scaling up their impact from the typical engagement of just one or two students and allowing for extensive peer teaching.Throughout the program, professional development activities are efficiently delivered through standardized materials to teach critical research skills like record keeping, establishing group expectations and dynamics, and networking.These skills are also reinforced at workshop events hosted during the semester, which are effectively delivered online and yield growing impact for modest effort as the community grows.The program has been successfully implemented as evidenced by the last two semesters' evaluation findings through interviews, focus groups, and pre-post surveys.The students reported a positive attitude towards the program.Students' perception about machine learning knowledge and skills and their self-confidence improved after they got involved in the program.The instructors and mentors indicated positive teaching and mentoring experiences, and shared ideas on the further improvement of the program.Building on its early successes the team is continuing to implement evaluation data-driven improvements to the program with the goal of continuing to grow through new collaborations.introduction Mentored undergraduate research experiences where students are given a hands-on opportunity to engage in research are known to provide positive outcomes for both the mentor and mentee [1], [2].Typical structures include paired research mentoring and course-based research.Paired research between a faculty and undergraduate student where the student participates as part of the faculty's research group is perhaps the most direct approach which maximizes the amount of mentee-mentor interaction [3].These mentor-mentee dyads occur regularly on campuses of all sizes and types during the academic year and are also associated with summer undergraduate research programs (e.g.

This study examined the perceptions of 155 science and engineering faculty at a mid‐size university with a very extensive undergraduate research program. The faculty thought the undergraduate research experience provided important educational benefits to the students, in good agreement with results from a recent alumni survey. The faculty who supervised undergraduates for a longer period of time and who modified their research program to accommodate undergraduates perceived a greater enhancement of important cognitive and personal skills. Undergraduate research was also believed to provide important mentoring and teaching experience for graduate students who worked with undergraduate research assistants.

In this paper, we explore the implementation of a student-led, performance-based assessment model in a vertically integrated, industry-sponsored undergraduate research program focused on sustainable aviation. Understanding the limitations of assessment within such programs is crucial for extending the value of this approach to other experiential learning environments. Students were tasked with creating personalized assessment portfolios to demonstrate their achievement of program learning outcomes, as well as identifying transferable skills such as leadership and mentorship, drawing on the transversal skills and competencies (TSC) model. The intervention included the development of an individualized portfolio plan at the start of the semester, a midsemester formative check-in, and a final portfolio submission. Our findings reveal educational successes within Education to Engineering (E2E), including strong student engagement, the ability to connect their assessments to team-specific deliverables, and the use of reflective practices that align with professional skill development. However, students predominantly relied on traditional academic artifacts, such as final reports and presentations, with limited emphasis on transferable skill development. Most students favor hierarchical evaluation, where grades are assigned by faculty or subject matter experts, over scalable methodologies like self-assessment. Despite this, the inclusion of nontraditional artifacts, such as reflective journals and proposals for future work, demonstrates the program's influence in encouraging metacognitive growth and professional skill development. Additionally, a strong correlation in artifact types among team members reflects a deep understanding of their projects and a rejection of one-size-fits-all assessment approaches. In addition, this paper discusses the use of the framework/tools used in this analysis to help quantify the effectiveness of these types of student-led programs, from the student, professor, and industrial perspective, while acknowledging the different priorities of each group. These findings highlight the need for enhanced framework/scaffolding to help students better align their academic learning with professional standards and progress toward a scalable, student-centered assessment model. The program's demonstrated success in engaging students with interdisciplinary, team-based projects and encouraging professional skill development positions it as a model for future educational innovations.

While undergraduate research has been deeply rooted in other disciplines, far less attention has been given to its role in journalism and media studies. This study addresses that gap through 11 in-depth interviews with administrators guiding such efforts. Findings reveal a tension: Administrators are eager to expand undergraduate research, but face obstacles to building necessary support for faculty. Results highlight the perceived importance of undergraduate research to the field’s future amid an underdeveloped culture for its current success within journalism and media programs. The study showcases that effective allocation of resources is critical to the success of undergraduate research programming.

Over the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in undergraduate research activities at colleges and universities nationwide. However, this comes at a time when budgets are being tightened and some institutions do not have the resources to pursue new initiatives. In this article we present some ideas for obtaining funding and support for building an undergraduate research program in mathematics.

Authentic undergraduate research experiences have been shown to be very effective at sustaining students’ learning motivation and enhancing students’ theoretical knowledge and practical skills. However, there still exists some common challenges in undergraduate research. In this paper, we describe an approach that offers undergraduate students authentic and immersive research experience focusing on applied machine learning for software engineering and discuss our experiences with example undergraduate research projects and outcomes. A survey was designed to assess students’ overall experience of participating in authentic undergraduate research projects in machine learning for software engineering. Preliminary results from this survey are provided.

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).