Students’ Experiences with the Science and Engineering Practices in a Workshop-Based Undergraduate Research Experience

Abstract

This paper presents a phenomenographic investigation of students' experiences about research and poster presentations in a workshop-based undergraduate research experience with a focus on how the experience connects to the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) of the National Research Council's A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the principles of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). This provides insight into how these structured research experiences reflect particular SEPs and also elements of scientific practice that are not captured in the SEPs as they were formulated previously. This work showcases the importance of future applications, failure, and creativity as additional science practices necessary for students to engage in authentic science. The SEPs and additional elements of scientific practice are related to how students experience meaningful learning in the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains. Students highlighted the components of CUREs: the importance of contributing relevant discoveries as a motivation for their research, the value of repetition and iteration in ensuring reliable and valid results, and the role of collaboration in seeing new perspectives and solving problems. As a result of presenting their results through a poster, students reported a deeper understanding of their research topic, an increased ability to articulate scientific concepts, and a better understanding of how to create a visually appealing poster. Students changed the vocabulary they used in their presentations to fit the knowledge level of their audience, highlighted their data in figures, and explained other parts of their work in text. Moreover, they saw the poster as an outlet for their creativity.