Faculty Motivation to Mentor Students Through Undergraduate Research Programs: A Study of Enabling and Constraining Factors

Abstract

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.

Why Work with Undergraduate Researchers? Differences in Research Advisors’ Motivations and Outcomes by Career Stage

“…Morales et al. ’s ( 2016 ) model includes various demographic and situational factors, yet only includes one dispositional factor, which they termed “organizational citizenship behavior.” These researchers considered three types of organizational citizenship behavior: 1) increasing diversity through mentorship of underrepresented minority students, 2) enjoyment of teaching students about research, and 3) being able to help prepare students for graduate studies. For our sample, advisors’ dispositional factors were different from those assessed by Morales and colleagues.…”

“…Another challenge of increasing the number of advisors is motivation, or whether or not potential advisors want to work with undergraduate researchers. Morales et al. (2016) offer a model of advisor motivation that takes into account five types of influences: 1) expected costs and benefits, 2) previous mentoring experience, 3) situational factors, 4) demographic factors, and 5) dispositional factors.…”

“…Among individual demographic factors, faculty of color ( Webber et al. 2013 ), midcareer faculty ( Morales et al. 2016 ), and faculty in the life sciences ( Eagan et al.…”

“…The fifth type of influence, dispositional factors, is still relatively unexplored. Morales et al. (2016) identified only one dispositional factor in their model, “organizational citizenship behavior,” which they described as exerting more effort than is required by one’s formal role.…”

Untitled

“…University administrators should decrease the opportunity costs of testing in the tutorial room and permit faculty deans or members to develop unique and effective teaching approaches across various departments (Linse, 2017). The use of faculty members in initial warning systems has become a norm in many universities as they play a crucial role in identifying vulnerable students depending on their adaptability and on their apparent impact (Morales, Grineski & Collins, 2017;Roksa & Whitley, 2017).…”