Creating New Knowledge with Undergraduate Students: Institutional Incentives and Faculty Agency

Abstract

Undergraduate students today face a more demanding and competitive labor market than their parents’ generation. In response, some pursue double majors to signal breadth to potential employers and to improve their job prospects. Some students also realize that a strong signal of workplace readiness is acquiring in-demand skills through independent and collaborative research. In this article, four professors at an undergraduate-focused public university in the United States share their experiences working with undergraduate students on research, focusing on the “supply side” of student research training and mentoring. We discuss how institutions can support differently situated faculty members, who face different career incentives and constraints, to integrate undergraduates in their research. We also address the limits of what is possible for faculty‐student research and suggest ways to overcome them.

Fostering a Community of Inquiry for Engaging Undergraduate Students in Research: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Using formal research projects has the potential to motivate students to get involved in research in their future academic endeavours [9]. Zvobgo, Pickering, Settle, and Tierney [2] concur with this supposition that competitive environments force undergraduate students to take projects that go well beyond the class exercise. While this strategy is desirable, it requires universities to collaborate with industries so that companies will assign practical projects to undergraduate students.…”

“…This definition seems to be anchored in traditional undergraduate student engagement where students are involved in research primarily to complete their degrees of study by contributing to knowledge. It ignores the current labour market requirements of a graduate who is endowed with what [2] term in-class and out-class hands-on experience. To achieve this hands-on experience, progressive universities give undergraduate students an option to choose a consultancy-based project in which they identify a company's problem and provide solutions as part of their research project.…”

“…Despite conducive-environments, the effort and strategies put forward by universities to engage undergraduate students in research, studies have shown that the students are reluctant to participate in research outside of their normal programme of study, are indifferent about research initiatives, resist any work that is in addition to their normal assignments and just do not care about research and the future of their studies. These perceptions pose challenges to student recruitment and retention during research [2], [6], [7]. We argue that due to the introduction of inclusion and diversity policies at universities, undergraduate students are a mixed multitude, as such, the strategies used by universities to engage undergraduate students are not all-encompassing.…”

“…Progressive universities worldwide are under pressure to seek innovative ways to incorporate and integrate undergraduate research into their structured research and academic programmes [1]. These universities are developing a culture that acknowledges undergraduate students as capable of contributing to scholarship [2]. The economic structural changes that have taken place at the turn of the century, coupled with rapid automation and advancement in technology, are exerting pressure on students to do more than academic achievement and acquire skills that make them competitive and marketable on the job market [3].…”

“…As undergraduate students, it is rare for them to enter into university with motivation, interest, and skill to engage in research, it is therefore incumbent upon universities and their faculties to foster an environment that would stimulate student interest [4]. Conventional methods of engaging students in research simply include a research component in their curriculum [2], however, this is not enough to stimulate the interest of the students as their involvement will be merely to fulfil the requirements of their programme of study. The increasing focus on bridging the gap between academia and industry has augmented emphasis on experience-based learning, rendering student research skills a prerequisite rather than an elective.…”