Building research skills: Freshman to senior year

The value of undergraduate research (UR) in building students’ critical thinking and analysis skills, self-esteem and personal development, and professional portfolios has been long recognized and well documented (see Hunter, et al. 2006 for just one example).  UR also has value to institutions (for example as both a recruitment and retention tool) and to faculty members.  Given all of these benefits, it is not surprising that there has been a push for increased UR from universities, students, and external stakeholders.    Implementing UR on a program-level scale raises many questions.  This presentation will focus on the point that, in order to be prepared for serious independent research in the junior or senior year, students need appropriate preparation at the lower levels.  While some of this preparation (writing skills, basic literature search skills) may be addressed in a general college curriculum (say in a freshman composition sequence), there are many other skills related to appropriate research methodology which are needed for a successful UR experience.  Skills such as an appreciation of research ethics, writing and evaluating research questions, discipline-specific literature search skills, and an understanding of discipline-specific writing may not be a significant part of a traditional curriculum.  Instead of attempting to address all of these issues in a culminating research methods class, we propose a plan to incorporate these stages of UR throughout a student’s college experience.

Reference:

Hunter, A.-B., Laursen, S. L. and Seymour, E. (2007), Becoming a scientist: The role of undergraduate research in students' cognitive, personal, and professional development. Science Education, 91: 36–74.