undergraduate level research

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What is Undergraduate Research?

What is undergraduate research.

Research is a creative and systematic process of asking questions and discovering new knowledge. Any student, regardless of major, year, or experience, can get involved in undergraduate research.

“Find what you love! The sheer abundance of research opportunities at UW can be overwhelming. Take the time to explore what you like.” Sophia Mar Biochemistry Undergraduate

Frequently asked questions about undergraduate research:

Many students who answered these questions are Undergraduate Research Leaders (URLs) with the Office of Undergraduate Research . Click here to learn about the URL program.

Do I need prior research experience(s) to participate in undergraduate research?

No! Most people don’t have any experience with research before college, so it is more than okay to reach out before you have any formal research experience. I would encourage everyone interested in research to look into professors or researchers who conduct research on topics that you are interested in and email them to ask if they have any space in their lab! – Megana Shivakumar

View Megana’s URL profile here .

You definitely do not need prior experience to start researching as an undergrad! Most professors/UW programs supporting undergrad research are more than happy to support students through their first research experience. If you have found a topic or program that interests you, your interest is enough to make you a valuable member of the research process. Also, each research project/lab/program is completely different and will be a new starting point for each person involved even if they already have research experience. – Ruby Barone

When is a good time to start research and/or apply for a research opportunity?

Everyone has a different path to research! I started in high school through a Biomedical Sciences class and continued research at the UW through a summer program before freshman year. With this being said, you do not have to start research this early on. Some students begin research after the fall or winter quarter of Freshman year while others wait until Sophomore year. Personally, I took a break from research my sophomore year and just participated in summer research through an internship. Currently, I am starting in a different lab, so don’t worry about starting later into your undergraduate year as a junior. However, I would suggest reaching out sooner rather than later, so you do not wait until your senior year because you may not have enough time to learn whether you enjoy research or not. – Nisha BK

View Nisha’s URL profile here .

Can/should I do research before I’m in a major?

Yes! I would definitely encourage students to look into getting involved with research before they’re in their major so that you can learn more about the specific topics within your major that interest you. In addition, many PIs like to work with students earlier in their college career so that you can spend more time working in their lab and specializing in your skill set. It’s never too early to start! – Megana Shivakumar

Can I do research outside of my major?

You absolutely can! I conduct research in a Microbiology lab as a Biochemistry major. My research provides me with insight into the unique workings of biochemical assays specifically used with bacteria. For example, I research DNA replication proteins and am working to determine the biochemical mechanism of action for protein-protein interactions that are unique to bacteria using both in-vivo and in-vitro assays. Additionally, many fields are interdisciplinary in their research: in my lab, I get to work with aspects of Microbiology, Virology, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry. Having a different major from your research topic can make you a unique asset to a research group, as you may be better equipped to answer questions in ways that come from your major compared to the field of the research you participate in. If you’re passionate about the topic, I would encourage you to pursue the research opportunity! – Tara Young

View Tara’s URL profile here .

Are there research opportunities for students in arts and humanities? (Can only STEM students get involved in research?)

This is one big misconception that I have come across at UW – that research is only STEM-related. This is wrong!! UW has tons of great opportunities for research in the humanities – for example, the Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities is a summer program that supports students through an arts/humanities-centered research project based around a common theme (selected students also receive a financial award and course credit!). The Mary Gates Endowment awards research scholarships to students from all disciplines, and many UW professors in the arts/humanities are also happy to have students reach out to them with research interests that can be pursued on a more one-on-one level with a mentor or instructor. – Ruby Barone

What do research experiences look like in the arts/humanities? Do you bring ideas or is there an assigned project?

Research in the arts/humanities is a lot less structured than how lab-based research and experiments might flow – students can create a research style and project that is tailored to their individual topic and interests, which allows projects to take form as research essays, art forms, performances, video essays, and the list goes on. For research programs like the Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities, and for more individualized research that one might work with a faculty member on, you are highly encouraged to bring your own interests and passions to the table. Your mentor(s) will likely provide a basic framework for the final project you are aiming to produce, but they also allow a lot of room for creativity and your own interpretation of your research to take place. For example, my last big research project took form as both a formal research project and an art piece, which ended up being displayed in UW libraries and the UW office of research. Research in the arts/humanities is very fluid, and your project’s form will likely evolve as you learn more about your topic. – Ruby Barone

If I started a research project in high school, can I continue it as an undergraduate?

If you began a research project in high school, it is absolutely up to you and your research mentor whether you want to continue it into your undergraduate career. If you feel passionate and excited about your research, don’t feel obligated to switch topics as you enter undergraduate research. However, I would say that the transition to college can be a great time to try new things and extend yourself as a researcher to learn new skills, techniques, and about new topics! You have a lot of years to experiment with new things. Anecdotally, the research I participated in during high school in seismology is completely different from the research I conduct now in microbiology, and I really value having had that experience in gaining skills in a more “dry lab” environment. Although I now work in a wet lab, there are many skills that can carry over, and it allows you to get a better sense of what excites you as a researcher. – Tara Young

How many hours per week are undergraduates expected to dedicate to research?

It depends. Most professors in STEM fields, from my understanding, expect approximately 9-12 hours per week. That said, you can fulfill these hours whenever it works best with your schedule. Moreover, all professors understand that you are a student first. If there are weeks where you have several exams, for example, or are particularly busy with schoolwork, communicate this to your research mentor! Odds are they will understand that you can’t work on your project as much as usual and it will be totally ok. – Carson Butcher

View Carson’s URL profile here .

How long (how many terms, how many hours per week) are you expected to be in a research experience?

For research in the STEM fields, mentors usually expect 10 hours per week of time commitment. However, it does not mean that you will and must do 10 hours of work every week. You would start easy with ~3 hours per week of training, getting yourself familiarized with the research methodology and protocols. As you gain familiarity and confidence in research methods, you can be more independent and conduct more experiments based on your interest, therefore spending more time in the lab. Mentors usually expect a long-term commitment of a minimum 1 year, and it is reasonable: most of the training, whether wet lab work or computational work, would require at least a quarter of training to gain confidence. You are left with two quarters (or more) of independent research to learn, grow and contribute. – Teng-Jui Lin

View Carson’s Teng-Jui’s profile here .

Can you apply to get basic research skills even if you don’t want a project or without having a specific goal in mind?

I recently transitioned to a new lab, and I do not have a specific project I am working on. I am mostly learning basic biomedical science lab bench work even though I have prior experience. My mentor encouraged me to start from the beginning as if I had no previous experience, so I can relearn the fundamentals. If you want to develop basic research skills, I would highly recommend applying because you will spend time learning techniques in the beginning and your mentor will be there to supervise you. – Nisha BK.

How do you balance schoolwork, work, life, home-life with research?

As a student who juggles a full course load and anywhere between 5-10 extracurriculars every quarter, I understand the struggle of maintaining a healthy work-life balance! Something that has always helped me is organizing my life into a calendar and being very intentional with how I spend my time. Especially when it comes to research, I set clear boundaries with my mentors about when I’ll be working. It also helps that I love everything that I do—I get to study neuroscience, do research, direct a mentorship program, and do a communications internship. It’s so rewarding when you get to do work that you are genuinely passionate about. But of course, we can’t be productive all the time. Make sure to prioritize your health and give yourself time to rest and recharge! – Shannon Hong

View Shannon’s URL profile here .

Additional Resources

• View the UW Libraries Undergraduate Research Tutorial module: Finding Your Balance

Anyone can participate in research and the Office of Undergraduate Research can help!

If you are curious about a subject and can find a mentor who is willing to support your endeavor, you can participate in research. The Office of Undergraduate Research is here to help you find research opportunities and mentors who can help you reach your goals. Check out a variety of undergraduate research projects below!

Jasmine Mae

Jasmine did undergraduate research on the Supreme Courts of the Philippines.

Learn more!

Matthew Nguyen

Matthew is pursuing research to find novel therapy for late-stage prostate cancer.

Meron Girma

Meron conducted research on healthcare accessibility within Ethiopia.

Abi worked to understand the impact of legal discourse on Seattle’s history of racially segregated schools.

Anika Lindley

Anika studied the association between aggression and social functioning in people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Daniel Piacitelli

Daniel studies cosmological emissions in metal spectral lines as an Astronomy and Physics student.

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A student’s guide to undergraduate research

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Originally written by Shiwei Wang for Nature journal in March 2019.

Participating in original research during your undergraduate studies can greatly expand your learning experience. However, finding the project can be a challenging task, so here’s a short but comprehensive guide that can help you get the most out of an undergraduate research opportunity.

Choose the right lab

Learn to think like a scientist. A lot of people start their undergraduate research by glancing at the faculty list and e-mailing multiple professors whose work seems interesting. Although this might get you a position somewhere, it is not the most effective approach. Before looking at labs, dive into the science to find out which areas fascinate you. Read a lot, go to talks, and talk to your professors not just about their classes, but about science in general as well.

Subscribe to e-mail newsletters from journals such as Nature and Science. Try to read research highlights and science news regularly. Podcasts and articles by, for example, Nature, Science, Scientific American or Quanta can also be interesting sources of information. Follow academics, journals and universities on Twitter. Start your undergraduate research by learning more about science, thinking like a scientist and working out what you love.

Look for questions, not subjects. You might have chosen a major to study, but don’t let this limit your search for research labs. Modern labs are interdisciplinary and very different from what you do in undergrad labs. Instead of limiting your search to your department, try to look at labs in all related departments. Choose labs on the basis of the questions they’re trying to answer.

Mentoring is as important as research. Contact group members to learn about your prospective laboratory’s environment. Are the group members close? Is the lab friendly or competitive and condescending? Is the lab head hands-off or hands-on? The size of the group is also important. If you join a small group, you’ll have a higher chance of being mentored directly by your principal investigator, whereas in a big group, you are more likely to be mentored by a postdoctoral researcher or graduate student.

Reach out with confidence. Once you’ve determined that the research programme interests you and the group dynamic is healthy, send the principal investigator an e-mail. Make sure to explain why you’re interested in working in the lab and that you have spoken to other lab members. Be patient if they don’t reply. If you don’t receive a response after a week or so, send a second e-mail or reach out in other ways, such as by asking group members to enquire for you.

Get the most out of the experience

Start your research with reading, and keep on reading. Usually, the principal investigator will assign you a mentor and a project. Ask for literature to read: learning about the state of the field and why the work is important will help you to push the project forward. Read about your field as well as other, totally unrelated fields. As an undergraduate, you have the freedom to change your major and your future plans. Make sure to strike a balance between reading and conducting experiments. It’s hard to do both at the same time, but it will make you a better scientist.

Set specific goals for yourself and let your mentors know. Think about what you want from your research and how much time you are willing to put in. Besides learning the techniques, do you want to learn how to analyse results and design experiments? Do you want to learn how to write proposals by applying for undergraduate research grants? Do you want to improve your presentation skills by going to conferences? Do you want to potentially finish a project for publication? Working out what you want to achieve will help you to direct your time effectively.

Research takes time. Don’t blame yourself if experiments don’t work or the project is not moving forward as fast as you expected. Science is about failing and trying again. Getting used to and coping with frustration is part of the learning curve of research.

Find a healthy balance. University is already a lot of work, and research will only take up more time. When planning your schedule, try to allocate large blocks of time (whole afternoons or individual days) to research. Rushing through a procedure could be unsafe and will often produce useless results. Always plan extra time for experiments. Consider working less in the lab during exam weeks so you don’t get overwhelmed. Talk to your mentor about your schedule and feelings regularly, so that you can arrange experiments at times that suit you, and you can keep on top of your mental health.

Find financial support. If you wish to do research at your own institution over the summer, your institution might offer funding to cover your expenses. If you want to go to another university, you can apply for funding from that institution’s undergraduate research programme, or from foundations, companies or academic societies. For example, the US National Science Foundation offers a Research Experiences for Undergraduates programme. Universities, foundations and academic societies might also offer grants to cover your travel expense to various conferences. Don’t let money limit what you want to do. Talk to senior students or professors, or search online to find all the opportunities!

Always think about the big picture. Your undergraduate research doesn’t define what you’re going to do after your degree. Keep reading and taking classes outside your comfort zone. Explore and learn as much as possible. Working out what you love is the best preparation you can get for the rest of your career.

Read the full article on the Nature website.

To find a research opportunity at Johns Hopkins University, visit the Hopkins Office of Undergraduate Research website .

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What is undergraduate research, what is research.

Research across disciplines is the  systematic production of new knowledge . The process often includes the following:

• Developing a research question(s);
• Identifying where the research question(s) fits within existing knowledge, often accomplished through a literature review;
• Designing the method of investigating the question and securing the appropriate permissions to conduct your research;
• Collecting and analyzing data/materials, drawing conclusions from that analysis;
• Writing about, presenting and publishing your findings.

You can read more about how "research" is defined nationally by the  NSF/OECD Frascati Manual  (an applicable definition across disciplines and fields)  here .

What is undergraduate research and creative inquiry?

In keeping with national definitions, CCRF defines undergraduate research as follows: 

Undergraduate research is a scholarly or creative investigation that contributes to the systematic production of new knowledge; it is a meaningful activity undertaken with the guidance of a faculty member or other research mentor(s) and is used to enrich the College academic curriculum and student experience through enhanced critical thinking skills and a greater understanding of a chosen discipline(s) and its methodologies.

CCRF joins the  Council on Undergraduate Research  in their endorsement of scholarship by Drs. Jeffrey M. Osborn and Kerry K. Karukstis who argue that four common threads must run through  every undergraduate research activity  on any campus:

• Mentorship.  A serious, collaborative interaction between the faculty mentor and student, in which the student is intellectually engaged in the scholarly problem or project
• Originality.  The student makes a meaningful and authentic contribution to the scholarly problem or project, and the work must be entirely or partially novel
• Acceptability.  Employing techniques and methodologies that are appropriate and recognized by the discipline with a problem or project that includes a reflective and synthetic component
• Dissemination.  Includes a final tangible product for which both the process and results are peer-reviewed, juried, or judged in a manner consistent with disciplinary standards

The term “undergraduate research” encompasses faculty- or discipline-expert directed scholarly research activities and creative endeavors.  CCRF recognizes that these experiences may range from historical scholarship, curatorial research, and laboratory experiences to music composition, creative writing, dramaturgy and data analysis in the social sciences. 

Search form

Research and innovation menu, research and innovation, defining undergraduate research.

As a faculty member, you know what research is. You also recognize and respect that what counts as research is unique to each discipline. This perspective – a working knowledge of research coupled with a scholarly regard for research and creative scholarship in other disciplines – is an essential starting point for understanding undergraduate research and creative scholarship.

Undergraduate students come into higher education at various levels of knowledge, skills, and abilities. It is likely that many of the students have not been exposed to rigorous academic research, possess vague ideas of what faculty research looks like, and may be intimidated by the concept.  However, they do know that research is a vital part of a university and they do appreciate that faculty who are productive researchers translate to the university and their discipline having prestige.  And more importantly, they are at a stage in their life when they are most eager to learn and explore their interests, and are therefore ripe to discover the joys of inquiry and discovery.

This setting illuminates the difficulty with defining undergraduate research.  It is not simply undergraduate students conducting research in the same arenas as faculty, using the same research methods and techniques, and working towards contributing original knowledge.  While that is an important part, a more accurate definition of research includes the learning, education, and developmental components that students go through as they learn about and experience academic research.  To further conceptualize this understanding, think back to your own undergraduate education and your first encounter with research.

• How would you describe that experience?
• What were some of they key moments and characteristics?
• Who were the key players?
• Why were you successful?
• How did you overcome challenges?

Contemplating and answering these questions is crucial to understanding undergraduate research and creative scholarship. All of these attributes, factors, and forces are what defines undergraduate research and creative scholarship. It isn’t simply a project, a report, publication, or presentation.  It is the experience — the learning, the intellectual growth and development, the acquisition of skills, the maturation of thought and self, and the fostering of an inquiring and critical mind.

It is from this perspective that the difference between research conducted at the undergraduate level and that which is conducted at the graduate level and beyond is revealed.  It is the pursuit of not only the answers to the research question, but also the pursuit of the positive outcomes associated with student learning and growth. It involves maintaining the ideals of rigorous and ethical research while simultaneously developing students as scholars.

Therefore, how we think about undergraduate research and creative scholarship is more important than how we define it.  Taking this approach allows us to use a broad definition of research that results in increased synergy between teaching and research (Colbeck, 1998; Healey & Jenkins, 2009; Jenkins & Healey, 2005; Zamorski, 2002), which can lead to beneficial educational activities for undergraduate students.

Next – The Teaching-Research Nexus

Suggested Readings

• Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship
• Colbeck, C. (1998). Merging in a seamless blend.  The Journal of Higher Education.  69(6), 647-671.
• Healey, M. & Jenkins, A. (2009).  D eveloping undergraduate research and inquiry.  Research report to the Higher Education Academy.
• Jenkins, A. and Healey, M. (2005).  Institutional strategies to link teaching and research.  York: The Higher Education Academy.
• Zamorski, B. (2002). Research-led teaching and learning in higher education: a case,  Teaching in Higher Education.  7(4), 411–427.

Mentoring Undergraduate Research Directory

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 15 March 2019

A student’s guide to undergraduate research

• Shiwei Wang 0

Shiwei Wang is a junior undergraduate student studying Integrated Science and Chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Twitter: @W_Shiwei

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience working in a materials-chemistry laboratory at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for the past two years. Being able to mix an undergraduate education with original research in a proper laboratory has been a fantastic opportunity.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00871-x

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged. You can get in touch with the editor at [email protected].

Wang, S. et al. Preprint at ChemRxiv https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.7824707.v2 (2019).

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What Is CUR’s Definition of Undergraduate Research?

Undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry is fundamentally a pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. With an emphasis on process, CUR defines undergraduate research as: A mentored investigation or creative inquiry conducted by undergraduates that seeks to make a scholarly or artistic contribution to knowledge. 

What Are the Benefits of Undergraduate Research?

• Enhances student learning through mentoring relationships with faculty
• Increases retention and graduation in academic programs
• Increases enrollment in graduate education and provides effective career preparation
• Develops critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, and intellectual independence
• Develops an understanding of research methodology
• Promotes an innovation-oriented culture
• Develops competencies that speak to career-readiness

How Does CUR Support Undergraduate Research?

CUR, incorporated in 1980, is an organization of individual, institutional, and affiliate members from around the world. CUR members share a focus on providing high-quality and collaborative undergraduate research, scholarly, and creative activity opportunities for faculty and students. CUR believes that faculty members enhance their teaching and contribution to society by remaining active in research and by involving undergraduates in research and that students engaged in undergraduate research succeed in their studies and professional advancement.

Among the many activities and networking opportunities that CUR provides, the organization also offers support for the professional growth of faculty and administrators through expert-designed institutes, conferences, and a wide range of volunteer positions. The CUR community continues to provide a platform for discussion and other resources related to mentoring, connecting, and creating relationships centered around undergraduate research. CUR’s advocacy efforts are also a large portion of its work as we strive to strengthen support for undergraduate research. Its continued growth in connections with representatives, private foundations, government agencies, and campuses worldwide provides value to its members and gives voice to undergraduate research.

CUR is committed to inclusivity and diversity in all its activities and our community.

We are your resource. We are the community. We are mentoring. We are CUR.

• What is Undergraduate Research?

Undergraduate Research: A Definition

The Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR) ( This site may be offline. ) and the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) are longstanding leaders in promoting undergraduate research. In 2005, they jointly endorsed the following statement on undergraduate research:

Its central premise is the formation of a collaborative enterprise between student and faculty member-most often one mentor and one burgeoning scholar but sometimes (particularly in the social and natural sciences) a team of either or both. This collaboration triggers a four-step learning process... 1. the identification of and acquisition of a disciplinary or interdisciplinary methodology 2. the setting out of a concrete investigative problem 3. the carrying out of the actual project 4. finally, the dispersing/sharing of a new scholar's discoveries with his or her peers- a step traditionally missing in most undergraduate educational programs. (NCUR)

Essentially, undergraduate research involves the same steps as research done by professionals.

This list of a generalized version of what Lopatto (2003) identifies as the essential features of undergraduate research as stated by faculty engaged in the practice. Figuring prominently in his list is also the idea that students experience some independence, have room for creativity, and feel ownership of the research project.

Undergraduate Research Teaches Disciplinary Practice

Undergraduate research experiences help students understand a particular topic or phenomenon in a field while simultaneously strengthening their comprehension of research and research methods. Undergraduate research is inquiry-based learning that involves practicing a discipline, not just being told about it. Students learn and apply the tools by which knowledge is created in their disciplines. They discover firsthand how the steps of the research process are related to one another, experience the triumphs and pitfalls inherent to the creative process, see that research is an iterative process and that ambiguity is part of the real world, develop an understanding and appreciation of how knowledge evolves, and produce an original contribution to that body of knowledge.

Undergraduate Research is Engaged Learning

Undergraduate research is engaged learning in a number of respects. It is a form of both experience-based learning and active learning , and it can engage students with contexts, including the social and civic. The mentoring and collaboration dimensions of undergradaute research can foster ownership for learning and encourage a committment to high standards and accountability. While the research process in a discipline may be well-established, research always requires creativity, as well as patience and resolve in grappling with what sometimes feels ambiguous to all participants, including the faculty mentor. These features create opportunities for students to explore their own learning styles as well as develop exposure to those of others.

Undergraduate Research Can Take Many Forms

Undergraduate research projects can be designed to fit a variety of class constructs and to promote student learning at all levels of undergraduate education. Undergraduate research projects can be student or faculty initiated, and students can either participate in a work in progress or enter a project at its start.

When they are structured properly, class-based activities (naturalistic observation, surveys, quantitative writing assignments and experiments) can be undergraduate research experiences. So can class-based research projects (term papers, service learning , community-based and campus-based learning ), capstone experiences (senior and honors theses), and out-of-class student/faculty collaborative research (like summer research experiences).

Some institutions and departments offer support and programs for undergraduate research through student/faculty summer research programs or undergraduate research offices. Even without such support, faculty can follow a well-defined process for developing undergraduate research and determining its best form for the course or experience they are considering.

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The undergraduate research experience is one of several experiences that can impact the future career choices of our undergraduate students. In academia, both the faculty and the students are challenged to embrace engaged learning experiences and evidence-based education through undergraduate research. This has been the transition in higher education over the last 20 years: moving towards creating powerful educational environments that improve learning, rather than adding more courses that merely transfer knowledge. However, undergraduate research as a retention strategy does not go far enough. A report from the Council on Undergraduate Research succinctly summarizes that undergraduate research should be: faculty-driven, student-centered, and institutionally supported and provides the combination of factors necessary for: pedagogical effectiveness, enhanced learning outcomes, research productivity, and research program sustainability. Research should be at the core and must be instrumental in generating a major interface with the academic and business world. It empowers the faculty for an in-depth approach in teaching. It has the potential to enhance the consultancy capabilities of the researcher. Research can be internally driven or projects can be commissioned by national and international organizations such as the UNO, World Bank, OECD, Asian Development Bank, NCERT, Planning Commission, ISRO, DRDO, Central & State ministries and industrial agencies. Students need to be mentored in the entire research process. The best way for this to happen is to put students in a position to become a research assistant and be truly useful to the research program. Undergraduate research allows students to develop professionally and personally in ways not possible through traditional lecture and laboratory courses. Research is an important theme that threads its way through the undergraduate experience from the first year through to graduation. Weaving together the threads of what is currently underway provides a powerful basis from which to build an enriched, comprehensive learning environment for undergraduate students and encourage engineering graduates towards pursuing research. Undergraduate research allows students to develop professionally and personally. Research experiences give students an opportunity to gain a deeper knowledge of research techniques and processes, apply classroom learning in real-world contexts, explore academic literature, and form meaningful relationships with faculty members and professional researchers. In India the technical education institutes realize the immediate need to bridge the gap between the institute and industry needs and the students must be aware of the latest technology. Therefore, it is essential to establish labs of current technologies in the Engineering departments of colleges. This paper looks forward offering the students perspective undergraduate internships available for undergraduate research. This paper tries to present some of the websites which encourage taking up the research projects at undergraduate level.

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Padmaja, A., Laxmi Ramana, V.S.V., Reddy, P.R. (2015). Importance of Research at Undergraduate Level. In: Natarajan, R. (eds) Proceedings of the International Conference on Transformations in Engineering Education. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1931-6_101

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How Undergraduates Benefit From Doing Research

Undergraduate research isn't just for STEM subjects.

Benefits of Undergraduate Research

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Studies show students who participate in research earn better grades, are more likely to graduate and are better equipped for graduate school or careers.

Jessica Stewart understands from personal experience the value of doing research as a college undergraduate. In her junior year at the University of California, Berkeley , Stewart worked with art historian Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby on her book, "Colossal," researching the Suez Canal, Eiffel Tower and other massive art and engineering monuments.

She loved the research so much that she went on to get her Ph.D. in art history. Almost 20 years after working on "Colossal," Stewart now directs the program that gave her the opportunity: UC Berkeley’s Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program.

But the initial benefit of doing undergraduate research was even more practical. When she was deciding which projects to apply for as an undergraduate, she got to explore many academic disciplines. This process opened her eyes.

“From the moment I set foot on campus, URAP allowed me to see what kinds of ideas I could study,” Stewart says. “The research and credit are great, but there’s this wayfinding side, too, where students can learn who researchers are, what research looks like and fields they may not have had any exposure to.”

A long tradition at some universities, mentored research projects are now offered at undergraduate institutions around the U.S. While many programs started out focused on science, today most universities offer opportunities across disciplines, including all aspects of STEM as well as architecture, business and theater arts.

No matter the subject area, research participation is an asset for undergrads. Studies show students who participate earn better grades , are more likely to graduate and are better equipped for graduate school or careers.

“It’s often most transformative for nontraditional learners and underrepresented students,” Stewart says. “They learn to triangulate life experience and studies in ways that may not have been intuitive for them. It greatly improves academic performance, retention and persistence.”

Research Roots in STEM

Every year, 6,000 undergraduates participate in research experiences through the National Science Foundation, mostly during the summer. Projects span nearly 20 subject areas , such as astronomy and ocean sciences. Most take place in the U.S., but some research is done abroad, including a marine sciences project at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.

Experiences like these increase students’ confidence in their research skills and boost awareness of what graduate school will be like, according to a 2018 study . They also help students identify whether they want to pursue a science career.

“It’s one of the best ways to recruit students into STEM careers and retain them,” says Corby Hovis, a program director at the NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education. “That’s why we do it. It’s an effective way to get students from classrooms into doing STEM.”

The NSF is especially interested in applications from students who might not have had past opportunities to do research, including those who are the first in their families to attend college, and Black and Latino students.

Research institutions apply for NSF grants to mentor undergraduate students and guide them through participation in an ongoing project. For students, the experience includes orientation and training, as well as a stipend and allowances for housing and travel. In most cases, students write a paper about their contribution to research and may even present at a conference or seminar.

Some opportunities require that students have specific math courses under their belts, but all focus on helping students build other skills, aside from lab or research techniques, that they’ll need for future academic work or careers.

“Communicating clearly the results of research is a skill that could carry over into any field,” Hovis says. “The teamwork and cohort experience not only encourages them to continue in science, but (is) translatable to any number of other activities they will do later on.”

Connecting With Faculty

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , research has been part of the undergraduate experience for more than 50 years. Some students choose the school specifically for this reason, and more than 90% of students participate. As at other schools, research is part of a bigger initiative around experiential learning, which also includes service learning and study abroad .

The biggest challenge for students is usually figuring out what kind of research they’re interested in.

“We depend on students to do some of that footwork,” says Michael Bergren, director of MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. “There are a lot of supports, but at the end of the day a student needs to understand what they’re interested in, who's doing the work they’re interested in and what the steps are to participating in that research.”

But there is hand-holding, if needed. Before applying to work on a project, students have to approach the lead faculty member and introduce themselves.

“This is really intimidating. We don’t take that for granted,” Bergren says. “Part of life skills development is approaching a lab or faculty member and advocating for themselves.”

Peers offer tips about how to navigate that face-to-face encounter, such as find out a faculty member's office hours, send an email with a resume attached and attend a departmental event.

The networking doesn’t stop there. Get to know which graduate students work on the project, talk to other students who might be exploring the same opportunities and make sure you know what the work involves.

“As the research progresses, deliverables amp up,” Bergren says. “You may find you need to put more time into this right when finals are happening.”

The Future of Undergraduate Research

Some undergraduate researchers might share their work at academic conferences or seminars, or even be published in journals. Some might participate in the Council on Undergraduate Research annual conference , the largest symposium of its kind. Every year, more than 4,000 students attend a graduate school and career fair and present work that spans the disciplines.

Students have come to expect that they’ll get a chance to do research as undergrads, says Lindsay Currie, the council's director.

“More recent generations grew up in a different climate. They learned by doing in classrooms,” Currie says. “That, combined with a workforce that expects people to have lived experience, means students want to be able to say that they’ve already done research as part of their coursework.”

What’s next, Currie says, is universities that integrate research into coursework so that students start a project their first year and continue through their time in college. Working with a network of universities, the Council on Undergraduate Research has completed a study of how schools can modify their curricula to incorporate research from the very beginning.

“Starting as freshmen, students would work on research that would build,” Currie says. “This would be significantly more advanced projects that would be consistent across the particular department. This is how they’re going to teach, because they know students benefit from doing.”

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

Associated data.

In interviews, many undergraduate research advisors stated intrinsic motivations, but some early-career advisors expressed only instrumental motivations. This study explores what this means for how advisors work with undergraduate researchers and the implications for training and retaining advisors who can provide high-quality research experiences.

Undergraduate research is often hailed as a solution to increasing the number and quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates needed to fill the high-tech jobs of the future. Student benefits of research are well documented but the emerging literature on advisors’ perspectives is incomplete: only a few studies have included the graduate students and postdocs who often serve as research advisors, and not much is known about why research advisors choose to work with undergraduate researchers. We report the motivations for advising undergraduate researchers, and the related costs and benefits of doing so, from 30 interviews with research advisors at various career stages. Many advisors stated intrinsic motivations, but a small group of early-career advisors expressed only instrumental motivations. We explore what this means for how advisors work with student researchers, the benefits students may or may not gain from the experience, and the implications for training and retaining research advisors who can provide high-quality research experiences for undergraduate students.

INTRODUCTION

The benefits of undergraduate research for students are well documented and include personal and professional gains, research skills, career clarification, enhanced preparation for careers and graduate school, and the ability to think and work like a scientist ( Osborn and Karukstis, 2009 ; Laursen et al. , 2010 ; Lopatto and Tobias, 2010 ; Linn et al. , 2015 ). Other researchers have linked participation in undergraduate research with intention to continue in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related graduate programs, particularly for students otherwise underrepresented in these fields (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, 2011 ; Eagan et al. , 2013 ). One study even reported that undergraduate researchers reported increased productivity and satisfaction when they advanced and in turn became advisors for undergraduate research projects during their graduate studies ( Lunsford, 2012 ).

Because of these benefits, undergraduate research opportunities have been, and continue to be, an important aspect of federal plans to help improve STEM education and train qualified students for the STEM workforce of the future (Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, 1998 ; National Science and Technology Council, 2013 ). While these plans advocate for increasing access to undergraduate research opportunities, this goal presents challenges. Either we must find ways to increase the number of students each research advisor can sponsor, or we must increase the number of advisors who work with undergraduates in apprentice-style research. Increasing the number of students each advisor works with presents challenges, as advisors may be pressured to take on less-prepared students who require more time to train or to take on too many students to provide meaningful personal interactions with all of them ( Laursen et al. , 2010 ). Course-based research experiences are another possible way to increase the number of students working with each research advisor ( Bangera and Brownell, 2014 ; Corwin-Auchincloss et al. , 2014 ; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2015 ). This approach is currently being tested and studied.

The other tactic for increasing the number of potential research advisors who engage undergraduates in apprentice-style research experiences presents its own challenges. Proper training may be necessary to ensure that new advisors are prepared to provide high-quality research experiences for undergraduates ( Pfund et al. , 2006 ). In fact, in a large-scale survey of both advisors and students involved in research experiences, students’ most commonly suggested improvement was more frequent and better quality guidance from their advisors ( Russell et al. , 2007 ).

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.

There is some research available on how each of these factors affects advisors’ motivations. Benefits for advisors are associated with higher participation in undergraduate research and include advancing the advisor’s own research agenda ( Adedokun et al. , 2010 ; Laursen et al. , 2010 ), while the time for training undergraduate researchers is a cost that deters advisors ( Adedokun et al. , 2010 ; Baker et al. , 2015 ). Situational factors are also influential. Some advisors are deterred by institutional practices that do not formally recognize and reward engagement in undergraduate research in their tenure and evaluation processes; conversely, available funding to support undergraduate researchers can help encourage advisors to participate ( Laursen et al. , 2010 ; Eagan et al. , 2011 ; Baker et al. , 2015 ).

In addition to the influence of situational factors and anticipated costs and benefits, both individual and institutional demographics are associated with varying participation rates of research advisors. 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. , 2011 ) are more likely to advise undergraduate researchers. Among institutional variables, Eagan et al. (2011) report that faculty members were more likely to engage undergraduates in their research if they worked at liberal arts colleges, historically Black colleges or universities, or more selective schools. Baker et al. (2015) reported that faculty at one liberal arts institution were motivated to engage in undergraduate research because doing so aligned with the goals of a liberal arts education; at another institution, the strategic plan included goals that motivated faculty to participate. Yet, at many institutions, faculty often report feeling a tension between focusing on teaching versus research ( Brownell and Tanner, 2012 ). Even at teaching-focused undergraduate institutions, publications may be important for tenure and promotion, and the slower pace of research involving undergraduates can cause publication rates to dip ( Laursen et al. , 2010 ).

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. They measured it using three survey items. They asked respondents to rate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements about increasing diversity through undergraduate research, enjoying teaching students about research, and helping prepare students for graduate studies. Moreover, only one of these items, “I value the opportunity to increase diversity in the academy through mentorship of underrepresented minority undergraduates,” was significantly correlated with participation in undergraduate research advising. There is still much to learn about undergraduate research advisors’ motivations, especially in the area of dispositional factors.

In this paper, we expand this modest literature to address research advisors’ motivations to work with undergraduates in a research-focused institution. The present study builds on our prior work about students’ perspectives and outcomes from undergraduate research ( Thiry and Laursen, 2011 ). In that study, students cited important types of professional, intellectual, and personal support that their advisors provided as they interacted over the course of the research project. To examine the other side of these interactions, we conducted a complementary interview study designed to explore advisors’ perspectives about their students’ experiences and outcomes ( Hayward et al. , 2013 ). While we began with a focus on advisors’ observations about their students, in conducting and analyzing these interviews, we found that advisors’ motivations for engaging in undergraduate research emerged as important in their own right. In this qualitative analysis, we explore the phenomenon of advisor motivation, including some motivating factors that are not currently addressed in the literature. We use interview data to examine the range of motivations that novice and experienced research advisors reported, identify possible relationships between advisors’ career stages and motivations, and suggest ways in which advisor motivations may shift over the course of an academic career.

Types of Motivation

Because motivations emerged as a central topic in our interview data, we start by offering some insight from the available research literature on motivations, which we then use to interpret and frame the discussion of our results. Previous research on motivation in various fields has found that the type of motivation affects outcomes. Motivations generally fall into two main types. Somebody who is intrinsically motivated to engage in an activity will do so even in the absence of external reward ( Ryan and Deci, 2000 ). Extrinsically motivated individuals, on the other hand, are driven by outcomes and forces separate from the activity itself, such as rewards, recognition, or social pressure ( Ryan and Deci, 2000 ). The names and definitions of different types of motivations vary slightly from source to source and field to field. Some researchers have argued for different terms because intrinsic and extrinsic are ambiguous about whether they refer to the person or the activity and because intrinsic seems to imply an inherent pleasure in the activity ( Wrzesniewski et al. , 2014 ). We choose to use intrinsic to refer to motivations inherent to the activity itself and instrumental to describe motivations that serve as a means to an end that is outside of the activity of research advising. These choices help to alleviate some of the common misconceptions and are consistent with the labeling in the few other available studies that discuss research advisor motivations (e.g., Dolan and Johnson, 2009 ; Prunuske et al. , 2013 ).

When people with different motivations are compared, those with intrinsic motivations tend to have better performance and outcomes in various settings, including high school completion ( Vallerand et al. , 1997 ), workplace performance ( Grant et al. , 2011 ), and retention and promotion in the military ( Wrzesniewski et al. , 2014 ). Moreover, offering instrumental motivations for an activity that one already finds intrinsically motivating can be detrimental, rather than additive. Deci and Ryan’s ( 1985 ) seminal work includes a review of multiple examples in laboratory settings in which introducing instrumental motivations (e.g., a reward) for doing activities that were already intrinsically motivating resulted in decreased enjoyment of those activities. There are also real-life, nonlaboratory examples of the detrimental effects of mixed motivations. Among West Point cadets, those who expressed both intrinsic and instrumental motivations tended to fall midrange on long-term outcome measures such as graduation rates, early promotion, and retention beyond mandatory service periods; they underperformed cadets with mainly intrinsic motivations but surpassed those with mainly instrumental motivations ( Wrzesniewski et al. , 2014 ). In another study, when volunteers held multiple motivations, they found the act of volunteering to be more stressful, more costly, less fulfilling, and less satisfying than volunteers who expressed only a single motivation ( Kiviniemi et al. , 2002 ), suggesting that with more motivations come more, perhaps conflicting, expectations.

Advisor or Mentor?

Before describing our study design and results, we also discuss our choice to use the term “research advisor,” instead of the more common term “mentor.” Much of the available literature uses the term “mentor” to refer to those individuals who work with undergraduate researchers. However, “mentor” is not always an appropriate term. Kram (1985) identified two functions of mentors: providing career support and providing psychosocial support. In fact, being a research mentor may involve an even greater variety of functions, including advisor, supporter, tutor, master, sponsor, or model of identity ( Guberman et al. , 2006 ). In practice, these functions may be variously filled by different individuals (e.g., Windham et al. , 2004 ; Pandya et al. , 2007 ). A recent literature review identified 10 evidence-based practices of high-quality mentoring in undergraduate research, which included technical or expertise functions such as skill training, careful project management, and career development, as well as interpersonal functions such as building community, providing emotional support, and showing personal interest in students ( Shanahan et al. , 2015 ). Yet not all research advisors follow all of these exemplary mentoring practices or fill all of these mentoring functions ( De Welde and Laursen, 2008 ; Linn et al. , 2015 ). This body of literature shows that the term “mentor” generally implies “psychosocial support,” or a closeness and trust in a personal relationship that is not always present in research advisor–undergraduate researcher interactions.

The term “mentor” may also imply experience and expertise. Indeed, many past studies on mentoring have focused only on faculty members as research mentors. However, at research universities, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and other scientists also serve as advisors to undergraduate researchers ( Dolan and Johnson, 2009 ). These people importantly expand the capacity for labs to take on undergraduates, and their experience as research advisors may be formative in preparing them for future mentoring and supervisory roles in academic and industry settings. Only a few studies about research mentoring have included graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in their samples (e.g., Dolan and Johnson, 2009 ; Prunuske et al. , 2013 ).

For these reasons, we use the term “research advisor” throughout this paper instead of the more common “mentor.” This term applies to all individuals who engage with undergraduate researchers, including faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and technicians, who guide and train undergraduate research students, while not assuming a depth of relationship that may or may not be present. This approach is consistent with other authors’ views that not all advising is mentoring and that more work is needed to understand the role of individual identities and the relational aspects of undergraduate research advising ( Palmer et al. , 2015 ).

Context for the Study

In this study, we draw upon interview data from advisors in one undergraduate research program at a large, PhD-granting research university in the Western United States. In the program, students worked with advisors to develop a research proposal. Students accepted into the program were then placed in the labs of those advisors and supported through small grants to fund their research experiences. The program supported both summer and academic-year research opportunities. While the content and scope of students’ research experiences varied depending on the labs they were in and the projects they were working on, all students in the program attended a few seminars together in order to develop commonly needed skills. For example, students attended a seminar to learn how to prepare a research poster and then another later seminar to help critique one another’s posters before presenting them at the end-of-program poster session.

Participants and Data Collection

Data were collected through retrospective interviews with research advisors. All advisors had supervised undergraduates during summer or academic-year research as part of the same program. We had previously conducted interviews with students in the program ( Thiry and Laursen, 2011 ) and then designed the current study to learn more about those students’ activities and scientific development from the perspective of their research advisors. Due to a gap in funding, advisors were interviewed approximately 2 years after they had participated in the program, though some advisors had continued to work with other undergraduate researchers.

Each student in the program may have worked with multiple individuals in a lab, but only one was identified as the advisor of record. The sponsoring program provided us lists of these advisors of record, and we drew a stratified sample in terms of discipline, gender, and years of experience. Invitations were sent to 52 research advisors. Thirty (58%) participated in individual interviews and were included in our sample. In total, 21 separate research labs were represented in our sample. We interviewed more than one advisor from seven of these labs because there were multiple student/advisor pairs in those labs.

Of the 30 advisors interviewed, 50% ( n = 15) were men and 50% ( n = 15) were women. Most research advisors were graduate students ( n = 13, 43%) or faculty ( n = 11, 37%). Postdoctoral researchers ( n = 5, 17%) and one technician made up the remainder. Some were working with their first undergraduate and some had been doing so for more than 40 years. We classified those with less than 5 years experience as “early-career” advisors ( n = 17, 57% of the sample), which included all graduate students, the technician, and some of the postdoctoral researchers. Advisors with five or more years of experience advising undergraduate researchers were classified as “experienced.” This group ( n = 13, 43%) included all faculty members and some of the postdoctoral researchers. Advisors were all from different departments throughout the life sciences. We do not break out participants by department or other demographic variables in this paper, as small group sizes may make individual identification possible.

The interviews were semistructured so that participants could share their own insights and reflections as well as respond to questions posed by researchers. The order of questions was not the same in every interview. Some topics arose spontaneously, and some were not represented in every interview. For example, the interview protocol did not directly address advisors’ motivations to work with undergraduates. However, this topic arose in almost every interview (28 of 30, 93%), signaling the importance of motivation to research advisors.

The interview protocol covered a broad range of topics to help advisors reflect on their undergraduates’ research experiences, including their prior research advisor experiences and training, the nature of their students’ research work, student gains from research, descriptions of lab interactions, and the costs and benefits of advising undergraduate research. (The full protocol is available in the Supplemental Material.) References to both instructor and student gains are self-reported gains described in comments during interviews; they are not derived from external, standardized measurements. Before any data collection, all interview protocols were reviewed and approved by our Institutional Review Board at the University of Colorado–Boulder. The interviews were audio-recorded, and then transcribed verbatim and entered into NVivo v. 9 (QSR International, 2010 ).

Data Analysis

Our general approach to analysis was observational in nature, treating the interviews as revealing motivations as they occurred in a real-world setting. Rather than testing a hypothesis about advisor motivations or aiming to confirm a preexisting theory, we took note of themes that emerged as we analyzed the interview data. During the analysis, sections of transcripts that related to specific topics were assigned codes to identify those topics. For passages of the transcript that addressed multiple topics, we assigned multiple codes. Additionally, codes were used multiple times throughout a transcript if the topic came up multiple times. We started with a coding scheme developed by the second and third authors from their previous work with undergraduate researchers ( Laursen et al. , 2010 , 2012 ; Thiry et al. , 2012 ). Before beginning, all three authors discussed the existing coding scheme for student interviews. Coding of the advisor interviews was then conducted by the first author and spot-checked by the second and third authors. Consistent with the goal of this exploratory study, we used the process of constant comparative coding ( Glaser, 1965 ) to reveal emergent themes from the interview data. That is, with each interview, we compared the data with our existing codes. New insights sometimes warranted the development of new or more specific codes (e.g., “advisor motivations”), which were then reapplied to earlier coded interviews. Discrepancies were resolved and new codes were developed through consultations among all three authors. If groups of codes shared similar themes, they were organized into domains ( Spradley, 1980 ).

We report results as both the number of interview participants who mentioned a topic (“number of advisors”) and the number of comments they made about that topic (“number of comments”) . Comparisons of the relative frequencies of specific codes give an estimate of the relative importance of the topics to the participants. These frequencies are not a generalizable or statistical measure.

In this analysis, we focus on advisors’ comments on a range of topics, including their motivations for engaging in research advising, the costs and benefits of doing so, and the benefits they thought students gained by doing undergraduate research. Advisors’ motivations help to shed light on why they chose to work with undergraduate researchers, and what their expectations may have been. We compare these expectations with the reported outcomes in terms of perceived costs and benefits, as alignment between expectations and reality may influence advisor retention. Finally, we analyze how advisors’ motivations may influence how they work with undergraduate researchers, and how that may affect student outcomes.

Motivations: Why Do Advisors Engage in Advising Undergraduate Researchers?

During the interviews, many participants spoke about why they chose to advise undergraduate researchers. First, we identified the different types of “advisor motivations.” Upon review of the entire set of coded motivations, two distinct categories emerged. We categorized them as “intrinsic” and “instrumental.” Intrinsic motivations are those that can only be achieved through the activity of undergraduate research advising, whereas instrumental motivations can also be achieved in other ways. For example, the intrinsic motivation of wanting to be a mentor for undergraduates is only possible through mentoring undergraduates, while it is possible to be productive, an instrumental motivation, through other means.

Advisors made many comments about intrinsic motivations (20 advisors, 41 comments), and most of these were about how advising undergraduates is essential to the development of the scientific workforce (18 advisors, 31 comments). For example, one advisor stated, “Training the undergrads and the grad students is part of my duty. People trained me, so I will do it too” (Male faculty advisor, #14). The motivation, fulfilling a “duty” to train future research scientists, is inherent in the activity of training undergraduate researchers. Most other intrinsic motivations addressed wanting to serve as a mentor (7 advisors, 9 comments), and one participant included undergraduates in her lab because their approach to lab work, which can get “frustrating and boring,” helped to “increase the fun ratio” (Female faculty advisor, #21).

Other motivations were more instrumental (16 advisors, 30 comments) in nature. That is, they were externally directed or served as a means to an end outside of research advising. These included increased lab productivity (11 advisors, 18 comments), requirement of the principal investigator (PI) of the lab (6 advisors, 8 comments), and requirement of the individual’s specific job or position (3 advisors, 3 comments). While these requirements might also be seen as “duties,” we classified them as instrumental, because the goal, such as satisfying one’s PI, can also be achieved in ways other than supervising undergraduate researchers. Examples of both types of motivation comments are presented in Table 1 .

Reported advisor motivations for supervising undergraduate researchers

In addition to the individually coded intrinsic and instrumental motivations, we also classified each interview holistically, based on the main themes in each interviewee’s comments about motivations. While most advisors expressed both, five advisors described only instrumental motivations such as external requirements or increased productivity; these were classified as “instrumentally motivated” to supervise undergraduate researchers. Of the remaining advisors, 23 were classified as “intrinsically motivated” to supervise undergraduate researchers. While many of these mentioned increased productivity, they also described intrinsic motivations like wanting to help students, wanting to “pay back” the scientific community by mentoring others as they had themselves been mentored, and enjoying mentoring. No advisors expressed solely intrinsic motivations. Two advisors did not comment on their motivations for advising and were not classified.

We compared each advisor’s career stage, expressed in years of advising undergraduate researchers, with his or her motivation for engaging in undergraduate research. Results are presented in Table 2 . About a third of early-career advisors were classified as instrumentally motivated. No experienced advisors were classified as instrumentally motivated.

Research advisor experience level and holistic classification of advisor’s motivations for supervising undergraduate researchers

Benefits: What Do Advisors Gain from Advising Undergraduate Researchers?

In addition to motivations ( why the advisors worked with undergraduate researchers), we also coded for advisor benefits : the positive outcomes they reported experiencing through serving as undergraduate research advisors. The two are related, yet distinct. When advisors talked about expected benefits they hoped to achieve by working with undergraduate researchers, we considered those as motivations. However, because interviews were conducted after the conclusion of the undergraduate research program, we coded as benefits only those outcomes advisors reported actually experiencing. The same topic was coded as both a motivation and a benefit only if the outcome was both expected and realized. For example, an advisor may have been motivated by the enjoyment of working with undergraduates, but enjoyment would only also be coded as a benefit if the advisor reported actually enjoying the experience.

The benefits also fit into the same two categories as motivations, instrumental and intrinsic. Intrinsic benefits are those inherent to the activity of supervising undergraduate researchers. Because they are inherent to working together with undergraduate researchers, there are often mutual benefits for both advisors and students. When comments were about benefits that could be gained in ways other than working with undergraduate researchers, we classified them as instrumental. Because these are not inherent to working together with students, they are often about how a student worked for , and served as a means to, the advisor’s benefit. The benefits advisors mentioned are included in Table 3 .

Reported benefits of supervising undergraduate researchers

While all advisors described benefits that they received, advisors with intrinsic motivations tended to discuss mutual benefits for themselves that co-occurred with those for their students. They also tended to discuss richer, layered views of the multiple benefits of undergraduate research. For example, one faculty member described how research advising helped all researchers in the faculty–graduate student–undergraduate triad common at graduate institutions ( Dolan and Johnson, 2009 ); he described both increased productivity and deeper understanding of the scientific concepts:

One is the obvious: [the graduate students] get helped. The other is, it’s very easy to forget that you, [faculty], were in that state at one point. I think you learn so much more by teaching than you do even by doing. I think it’s really good for the graduate students to be explaining things to the undergraduates and so forth, because they suddenly realize, just like [faculty] do when we’re teaching, that “I don’t really understand this.”—Male faculty advisor, #10

On the other hand, advisors with mainly instrumental motivations tended to focus solely on their own benefit of increased productivity and described the student as a means to that end, as in this example:

All of them are working on portions of my dissertation, which it clearly is beneficial. Even though it takes time to train them, in the big scheme of things, [on] large tasks, the hours they put in are crucial. They save me a lot of time and help with general productivity in the lab.… We get a lot out of having undergrads—if we didn’t, then we wouldn’t have them.—Male graduate student advisor, #15

Because we classified motivations separately from benefits and classified advisors holistically based on their expressed motivations for supervising undergraduate researchers, we are able to assess this alignment by directly comparing their motivations with the benefits they reported. Results are presented in Table 4 . On average, advisors with intrinsic motivations made roughly twice as many comments about intrinsic benefits as they did about instrumental benefits. Advisors with instrumental motivations made about the same number of comments about intrinsic benefits as they did about instrumental benefits. These relative frequencies may give an indication of the relative importance of those topics for advisors. Upon comparison, both groups reported roughly equivalent total benefits, but intrinsically motivated advisors tended to report more intrinsic benefits and slightly fewer instrumental benefits. This suggests that advisors may be more alert to benefits that match their initial motivations.

Advisor benefits reported by holistic classification of advisor’s motivations for supervising undergraduate researchers

Practices: How Do Motivations and Costs/Benefits Shape How Advisors Work with Undergraduate Researchers?

Research advisors had different motivations for working with undergraduate researchers and experienced benefits that tended to match their motivations. These differences in motivations may also have influenced their expectations about the outcomes research experiences could provide for students. Prior research has shown links between advisor preparation and expectations, the way they work with students, and student outcomes ( Pfund et al. , 2006 ). To explore this link between advisor motivations and perceived student outcomes, we classified advisor comments about student gains from research using six categories established in previous studies ( Laursen et al. , 2010 ), including the following:

• thinking and working like a scientist : intellectual gains in application of scientific knowledge and skills, understanding the process of research, and increased disciplinary knowledge;
• becoming a scientist : behaviors and attitudes necessary to become a scientist;
• personal/professional gains : confidence and comfort with ability to do well in scientific pursuits;
• skills : lab, field, and communication skills essential to research scientists;
• clarification of educational and career aspirations ; and
• enhanced career and graduate school preparation.

Overall, advisors with intrinsic motivations observed slightly more student benefits (19.4 comments per interview) than did advisors with instrumental motivations (16.0 comments per interview). This trend held separately for most of the six categories as well, as shown in Table 5 . The student benefits that advisors noted may shed some light on how they worked with undergraduate students: instrumentally motivated advisors tended to describe instrumental student benefits of undergraduate research experience. In the following example, the advisor described research experiences as a one-way ticket to graduate school, rather than as a space for exploring one option out of a variety of career possibilities:

There is always the self-recruitment for academic types, once you’re in that setting. But I think all these people also knew that doing just chemistry, or biology, with just a bachelor’s degree doesn’t get you far.… The mentality inside the lab [is] to keep going to school, and to keep bettering yourself.—Male graduate student advisor, #4

Student gains reported by advisors by holistic classification of advisor’s motivations for supervising undergraduate researchers

Here, the advisor focuses on a goal (i.e., graduate school admission) that is not necessarily inherent in the research experience itself. On the other hand, Laursen et al. (2010) found that some students used undergraduate research experiences as a chance to determine their own interest in and suitability for a career as a research scientist; the goal (i.e., experiencing research) was inherent in the activity itself.

Interestingly, of the four instrumentally motivated advisors (out of five total) who commented on career clarification , two compared their students’ experiences with their own experiences deciding on a future career path in academia. These advisors were both early in their careers, so these decisions were more recent for them. In contrast, advisors with intrinsic motivations spoke about career clarification more broadly, acknowledging that research experience is not just preparation for graduate school, and that, for some students, it does the opposite by making it clear that a career in scientific research is not actually what they want.

In addition to differences in the student benefits emphasized, differences in advisor motivations may also have influenced how they worked with students. Many advisors commented on how they selected projects for students. Advisors with instrumental motivations tended to involve undergraduates on aspects of their projects that served to help the advisor. This usually meant carrying out predesigned data-collection procedures and, in some cases, replicating studies that had already been done. For example, one instrumentally motivated advisor explained how he selected a project where the student worked mainly on data collection to verify work he had already done himself:

I had a massive amount of things that needed to be checked again, and it was a good opportunity to do the scientific process and get familiar with the instruments…. So it was kind of like she can learn and help [me] out by checking [my] own work…. It was something I was very familiar with, which is good, I think, [when] mentoring someone on something. [Mentoring on] something that you’re not familiar with is a disaster.—Male graduate student advisor, #5

On the other hand, advisors with intrinsic motivations tended to focus on how the student would benefit from the particular project, rather than how it would benefit the advisor. For example, one advisor noted how he specifically picked projects that were good learning opportunities for students but not central to his own research agenda, or, in his words, “a project that I would like to get to work but isn’t very high priority, and something I could give [the student] direction for but not necessarily count on having it work” (Male graduate student, #24).

While many intrinsically motivated advisors did select projects that involved mastering routine lab skills or replicating known results, these advisors also included more broad and authentic scientific work in the projects they picked for students. Some authors define “authentic scientific work” by its product —answering novel questions to make new scientific discoveries. However, in this context, we use the more broadly held definition based on engaging students in the processes of authentic scientific work such as forming hypotheses, designing studies, and collecting and analyzing data about questions that are novel to the students but not necessarily the entire scientific community ( Spell et al. , 2014 ). (For an in-depth discussion of the definition of “authenticity,” see Rowland et al. , 2016 .) One advisor explained, “They understand why the experiment was done.… They get to work on [experimental design]. They get the whole picture of how science is done” (Male faculty advisor, #10). Another intrinsically motivated faculty advisor described offering two different tracks:

One track is if they basically want to help out in the lab, and usually what they wind up doing in that case, is on the lab side of things, like routine [lab procedures]. On the computational side, it’s typically something like … implementation of a particular mathematical routine [that’s] in a recently published paper and that kind of thing. The other track [is] if they want to do a larger scale [and time] load project like an honors thesis project or an independent study.… So in that case what makes it successful is that this project … can be completed in the time available, so it’s got to be reasonable. And then additionally there has to be one specific postdoc or grad student from the lab who is excited [to] let that student on that project, because otherwise it’s very easy for the students to drift or go in unproductive directions.—Male faculty advisor, #27

Other intrinsically motivated advisors also described picking projects like this speaker’s “second track”—broader projects that accommodated students’ individual interests and that would help students develop as scientists, again focusing on helping students learn rather than solely advancing the advisor’s own research. One advisor described doing this by increasing the scope of a project over time and by including undergraduates in lab activities beyond routine data collection:

I will typically assign those entry-level students to a graduate student who can get them doing something that will help them in, I don’t want to say the word menial, but something that, if it backfires, it’s not going to set us back too much. So, sort of a low-risk, but hopefully a fun, first way to get engaged.… The other thing is that I will make sure that everybody comes to our weekly lab meetings, during which a grad student, or myself, or postdocs, will present, or even undergrads will present research, or talk about a paper. I like to give them the flavor of things.… Then, if they’re super gung-ho, maybe the semester following that, I’ll ask for an independent study.—Female faculty advisor, #6

In general, instrumentally motivated advisors tended to pick projects emphasizing data collection through replicating known studies or procedures. Student work on such projects largely focused on developing skills in data collection and lab techniques. Intrinsically motivated advisors tended to pick projects with a larger scope, and some involved students in all stages of the scientific process, including the design, analysis, and reporting of results, in addition to data collection.

Our results reveal some interesting findings about advisor motivations. Two different kinds of motivations, instrumental and intrinsic, shaped advisors’ choices to work with undergraduate researchers. Moreover, it seems that there is a relationship between types of motivations and career stage, as the small number of advisors who only expressed instrumental motivations were all early in their careers. The rest of the advisors, across various career stages, expressed a blend of intrinsic and instrumental motivations. When considering the interviews holistically, these advisors’ intrinsic motivations seemed stronger than their instrumental motivations, so we classified them as intrinsically motivated.

No advisors in this sample expressed only intrinsic motivations. Because expected benefits can also be motivations, this may just be the nature of research advising: all advisors may expect that adding another person to a research lab most likely will increase productivity. In this exploratory interview study, we did not have a way to measure the strengths of the motivations. So, we cannot tell whether increased productivity was just a benefit most advisors knew they would likely experience or a motivation that caused them to participate. This is analogous to a career choice in which the work is intrinsically motivating, but we still expect that it will help to pay the bills. Given the research on mixed motivations and how they relate to long-term outcomes, experimental work is needed in order to systematically test the relative strengths of different motivations.

The advisors in our study have reported motivations that differ from those in the existing literature. 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. In particular, the advisors in our study did not talk about minority groups specifically when they commented on motivations to develop the scientific workforce.

Morales and colleagues did not find a link between teaching or graduate preparation and participation in undergraduate research, yet both topics emerged from our interviews. Although “I enjoy teaching students about research” was not linked with serving as a research advisor in their results, seven of our advisors (23%) reported that they enjoyed mentoring and the desire to serve as a mentor was a motivating factor for them. Similarly, their third item, “I am able to help students be better prepared for graduate studies,” was also not found to correlate with participation in undergraduate research. However, in our study, developing the scientific workforce was the most frequently mentioned motivation. This difference may be partially related to the wording of their survey item, as some respondents may have interpreted the phrase, “I am able,” as a situational factor (i.e., access) or as a measure of success rather than a dispositional factor.

Our qualitative study also found some additional instrumental motivations not included in Morales and colleagues’ model: PIs’ requirements of senior lab members to advise undergraduates as part of their laboratory duties. These requirements were particularly salient for graduate students who served as advisors. Although graduate students often work closely with undergraduate researchers, few studies have included graduate students in their samples of research advisors. Indeed, Morales et al. (2016) tested their model using a survey of only faculty members. Dolan and Johnson (2009) , in one of only two other studies about motivation that include graduate students, found that “graduate/postdoctoral students … primarily saw mentoring undergraduates as a means to two ends: improving their research productivity and meeting the implicit or explicit expectations of the research group” (p. 491). That study included seven graduate and postdoctoral students from a single research group, so it is limited in its generalizability. Our study includes 30 advisors in 21 different research groups, with faculty members in addition to graduate and postdoctoral students. Together, these two studies suggest that early-career scientists have motivations for supervising undergraduates that tend to be more instrumental than those of experienced faculty.

As we have shown, these differences in advisor motivations for supervising undergraduate researchers may shape the way advisors work with students. Instrumental motivations may lead advisors to select projects that focus more on producing data and in the process help develop students as technicians, leading to gains for students in areas such as lab skills and data-collection techniques. Advisors with intrinsic motivations, on the other hand, focused more on developing students as research scientists by engaging them throughout the entire process of scientific inquiry. Other research has found that faculty advisors engaged undergraduates in more high-level activities such as exploring and articulating learning, while graduate student advisors tended to focus on the technical aspects of research ( Feldman et al. , 2013 ). Given the relationships in our data, it seems that differences in types of motivation may be a moderating or mediating factor between career stage and how advisors work with undergraduates.

If there is a relationship between motivations and career stage, what explains it? We suggest two possible explanations: 1) motivations may be static for individuals, and advisors with primarily instrumental motivations may stop advising later in their careers, once they have the ability to decide for themselves; or 2) motivations may be dynamic, and intrinsic motivations may develop over time for some individuals. Owing to the cross-sectional nature of our interview data, we cannot track changes in motivation over time, but there is some evidence about this, primarily from retrospective remarks in the interviews.

In particular, some of the evidence from our interviews suggests that advisors with instrumental motivations only engage in research advising early in their careers when they are required to do so by more senior colleagues, but then stop advising once they gain more autonomy. Twelve advisors reported being required to supervise undergraduate researchers. Only one of these was an experienced advisor, and he was required to supervise more students than he felt he had time for as a postdoc. No other experienced advisors mentioned being required to advise undergraduates, while 11 of the 17 early-career advisors (65%) did.

Other research supports the idea that advisors with instrumental motivations may stop advising as their careers advance. Our instrumentally motivated advisors were driven largely by increased productivity and also focused on it more as a benefit. However, undergraduate research has been described as posing a “fundamental tension” between producing research results and helping students learn and develop, which often occurs through cycles of trial, error, and retrial ( Laursen et al. , 2012 ). Motivations driven mainly by increased productivity may cause these advisors to be less tolerant of the slow pace at which undergraduates learn and develop. Therefore, they may see fewer benefits and fewer reasons to continue advising students as their careers advance.

However, it may also be that intrinsic motivations develop over time and layer onto initial instrumental motivations as advisors gain experience and a deeper understanding of advising. There is evidence to support this, too, as intrinsically motivated advisors still expressed some instrumental motivations. Indeed, some advisors’ comments describe how their intrinsic motivations developed over time:

It’s closer to home, in terms of mentoring the next generation of scientists.… This is not something that I felt strongly about initially, when I was younger. It’s something that gradually develops as I age, and now at this stage of my career, I think it’s so important to try to keep the pipeline going, and maintain that flow of the young scientists.—Female faculty advisor, #17

As advisors gain more experience and reflect back on their career paths, they may develop more intrinsic motivations, especially the desire to “pay it forward” and shape young students in the same way that mentors had shaped their own careers.

For intrinsically motivated advisors, advising meant working with students beyond just equipping them with lab skills. They described research experiences as a chance for a student to explore whether or not a career in scientific research is actually what he or she wants. By contrast, the instrumentally motivated early-career advisors described research experience as a one-way ticket to graduate school. Many commented on how research experiences had helped them advance their own careers in scientific research. This may indicate that early-career advisors have yet to develop a broad understanding of advising beyond their own experiences, and do not yet see all the multifaceted benefits of undergraduate research that intrinsically motivated advisors reported.

Experience is not necessarily the only source for intrinsic motivations, though, as most early-career advisors (11 of 17, 65%) were classified as intrinsically motivated. Some individuals may already have intrinsic motivations before becoming advisors, and such motivations may develop more quickly for some advisors than others. Future longitudinal research should explore how advisor motivations evolve throughout their careers.

Our findings suggest that instrumentally motivated advisors tend to focus on advancing their own research, whereas intrinsically motivated advisors are aware of the “fundamental tension” between student learning and research productivity and work to find a balance that benefits both students and themselves. By involving students in discovery and working to achieve a broader range of educational outcomes, intrinsically motivated advisors may in fact be more effective in helping students succeed and advance in the profession ( Russell et al. , 2007 ). Future research should explore more deeply how advisors’ motivations affect student gains from undergraduate research, their long-term pursuit of advanced degrees, and entry into STEM careers.

Earlier, we discussed our reasons for using the term “research advisor” rather than “mentor.” The evidence presented here suggests that not all advisors engage in all of the functions of a mentor. Instrumentally motivated advisors tended to discuss only a few of the functions of mentoring and mostly focused on technical training. On the other hand, intrinsically motivated advisors engaged in more of the functions of mentors, including interpersonal functions like providing emotional support or friendship and taking a personal interest in students by tailoring projects to their needs. Therefore, using the term “mentor” may assume certain functions or a close relationship that is not always present and may obscure differences in motivations that have consequences for what students gain from research experiences.

Undergraduate research experiences can be powerful in bringing about positive outcomes for students, and improving access to these experiences is a commonly recommended strategy for improving undergraduate education. To achieve this, we cannot assume that all advisors want to fulfill all of the roles associated with mentors. We should take into account advisor motivations and whether or not they shift over time. If advisor motivations are static, and instrumentally motivated advisors just stop working with undergraduates as their careers progress, efforts to improve student outcomes and access to research experiences should focus on making sure the right kind of people are hired and retained to provide high-quality research advising to undergraduate students.

However, if motivations develop over time, the focus should be on creating structures and programs that help research scientists to develop these intrinsic motivations and learn how to involve undergraduates in research in ways that support students’ learning and pursuit of scientific interests. Various practices have been suggested for how best to do this (e.g., Johnson et al. , 2015 ), but they are often externally directed strategies such as removing obstacles or creating incentives for advisors. Research in other fields suggests that creating instrumental motivation through offering external rewards for participation can actually be detrimental to performance and outcomes ( Deci and Ryan, 1985 ). Our findings suggest that the focus should instead be on increasing intrinsic motivations.

For example, one area that could easily be leveraged is advisors’ enjoyment of working with undergraduate researchers. Only one advisor reported being motivated by the enjoyment expected from working with students, yet 22 advisors (73%) reported experiencing personal rewards such as friendship, and 11 advisors (37%) reported that working with undergraduates had increased the energy and enthusiasm in their labs. Enjoyment seems to be a common, yet less anticipated benefit that could be particularly useful to increase early-career advisors’ intrinsic motivations, since they are often close in age to undergraduates and may especially enjoy these near-peer relationships.

It may also be relatively easy for senior colleagues to influence less-experienced colleagues’ intrinsic motivations. One graduate student explained that his PI’s beliefs shaped his own thoughts about working with students:

Our advisor is also very supportive of undergraduate research. She never says, “You’re working with this person,” but she’ll often say, “Hey, if you have time, I’d really like supporting undergraduate students.” That helped me think about it as an idea.—Male graduate student advisor, #20

If senior colleagues can help junior colleagues develop intrinsic motivations simply by discussing their own intrinsic motivations and rewards, this could be an easy, effective way to get more potential advisors motivated to work with undergraduates.

Supplementary Material

Acknowledgments.

The evaluation and research was supported by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Initiative (HHMI) through the Biological Sciences Initiative (BSI) at the University of Colorado–Boulder. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of HHMI or the BSI. We thank all of the study participants.

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A Survival Guide to Summer Research

Let’s face it. The idea of conducting research for the first time can be simultaneously one of the most terrifying and exciting prospects in one’s college career. Whether you plan to pursue a career in research and development, industry, or something completely different, the skills gained through undergraduate research are invaluable. But where do you start?

This is exactly what I was asking myself after my Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program (REAP) proposal was accepted last year. My project involved the conversion of carbon dioxide into methane through catalysis. My job was to synthesize different catalysts containing varying nickel, titanium dioxide, and varying weight percentages of heteropoly acids to determine its effect on increasing the amount of carbon dioxide converted. Despite having done hours of research to understand the topic enough to write a proposal essay, I still had some doubts about whether I was truly qualified. After completing my project, I can safely say that any similar thoughts you may be experiencing are unfounded.  There were several things that made the learning curve much smoother for me. . While not required, these steps may be beneficial to keep in mind as you begin to embark on your own summer research experience.

Prior to research:

If commuting to campus, get a summer parking permit. It can provide peace of mind to not worry about getting a parking permit at the last second. There are also options for summer on-campus housing if that is preferred.

Clearly outline what your goals are. Depending on the type of research project, this could include minimum amounts of data collected, a certain number of experiments run, the hours you plan to work, etc. Ask your mentor what their expectations are to ensure your goals are aligned.

Create an organizational system. For me, this was one of the first times I had to juggle multiple projects simultaneously outside of school. This can quickly become overwhelming. It is important to organize your time and materials in a way that makes sense to you. For me, this involved a research folder for physical documents and a research computer file with Word documents and Excel sheets. Create backups of any files if possible.

Continue learning. Before your project begins, continue to educate yourself as much as possible on your topic of choice. The UNH library has countless databases filled with scholarly articles that likely align with your research topic. They may provide useful insight on how other professionals explore these ideas or what questions are pertinent.

During your research:

Now for the exciting part. Here are the practices I found most useful for efficient research.

Plan each week. This is a 10-week process. It can be very difficult to utilize your time effectively if you are figuring it out as you go. Once you have a solid understanding of the tasks you do, write down what you hope to accomplish before beginning each week.

This is an example from one of my own weekly plans. Even writing a simple plan made me more motivated to complete tasks. I also used a weekly planner to mark important dates, created folders on my computer to make files easy to retrieve, and backed up my files as much as possible. If you ever need to revisit your work months or years later, it is extremely helpful for it to have its own reliable spot.

Document everything. This goes along with planning to some degree, but write down everything you do, even if it seems inconsequential. There are several reasons for this. First, it will greatly help diagnosing errors if results do not make sense or do not meet expectations. When I was having a problem getting my catalyst to form properly, being able to review every step of the process was invaluable to determine the issue, which was slightly too much deionized water being added. Second, if your results are statistically significant, or if you publish your results, understanding exactly what you did to achieve certain results is crucial. Finally, it will assist with writing your project summary once your summer is complete.

Communication is key. If ever you feel stuck or have concerns about anything related to your project, express them to your mentor. No one expects you to solve every problem alone, and whether it be by email, zoom, or in person, mentors are usually happy to assist in any way they can.

Once your research experience is over:

Congratulations! Hopefully you found the process to be as valuable and rewarding as I did. Besides wrapping up final details, many opportunities can be built off your project if want to continue your work.

Tie up loose ends. While you write your research summary and polish any results, I recommend backing up files, organizing and digitalizing documents, and most importantly, thanking everyone who helped you along the process and expressing appreciation for the opportunity.

Consider publishing your research. Did you know the University of New Hampshire has a research journal? Inquiry is an excellent spot to complete the final step of research, which is publication. If written well, the research summary in your final report can be converted to a research brief with minimal work, or you may choose to undergo a longer writing and revision process to publish a full-length research article.

Update your resume and share your experience on LinkedIn. This project likely taught you countless invaluable skills that employers would love to see from prospective employees.

Hopefully these tips help you feel more confident throughout your summer and prove to be as useful as I found them. Anyone can conduct research and there are countless resources available to those ready to utilize them. Good luck and happy researching!

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Research and Writing at Graduate Level

Any program leading to the Master of Arts fosters the student’s transition into a profession. Students learn how to discuss ideas in a particular discipline as professionals among professionals. To attain this goal, graduate students routinely engage in research and writing where correct documentation of sources signifies much more than the avoidance of plagiarism. Research and writing about scholarly discoveries signal the graduate student’s membership in a professional community.

Thus research papers written for graduate courses will differ from those written for undergraduate courses. The graduate student’s research paper will sustain deeper analysis of a topic at greater length and with narrower focus than the undergraduate paper. Graduate research papers will employ a significant scope of sources that are current, authoritative, and recognized within a particular area of study. Additionally, the graduate research paper demonstrates the student’s ability to identify appropriate topics related to course material and to exercise independence in both research and writing.

Graduate-level papers will also demonstrate the student’s ability to document all sources accurately and to edit carefully for standard American English. Students should refer to  The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers , 8th Edition (ISBN 978-1-60329-262-7), if they have questions about documentation, though some courses may ask students to follow the Chicago Manual of Style or the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association .

To prepare students for the level of research and writing required in graduate courses, professors incorporate into their classes instruction in bibliography and methodology appropriate to course content. Professors will assist students to access and learn how to access and evaluate scholarly materials. Professors may further provide rubrics or specific requirements about the nature and originality of the research and writing expected in fulfillment of a particular assignment.

For information on academic misconduct and plagiarism, see the Honor Code section of the Graduate Student Handbook.

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DU Lab Tapped for Research into Preventing Parkinson’s Disease and Related Dementias

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For the first time, a researcher in Colorado has received a Stanley Fahn Junior Faculty Award from the Parkinson’s Foundation to further academic study around the chronic neurodegenerative disorder for which there is no known cure.

Working out of the University of Denver’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics , Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biophysics Sunil Kumar and his lab are developing and testing potential treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD), which attacks the central nervous system of those affected and kills cells controlling motor function.

The $300,000 grants are awarded each year to only three researchers in North America. Kumar’s grant will help fund a study on the use of foldamers as potential drugs to treat Parkinson's disease.

Simply put, one of the key components of PD is clumping of a protein called a-Synuclein (aS) around neurons in the central nervous system. As the proteins build up or “aggregate,” dopamine production is slowly whittled down as cell death occurs around the brain. The drop in dopamine causes irregular brain activity, leading to the visible symptoms of PD like tremors, impaired motor function, rigidity and loss of balance. PD often develops into dementia.

On a basic level, Kumar’s lab has developed what are called “novel scaffolds,” also known as synthetic protein mimetics or foldamers, to interrupt the buildup of aS, and thereby preserve motor function and cells in the central nervous system. Kumar says that other researchers have used peptides—chains of amino acids—to try to accomplish the same task, but the pharmaceutical properties of peptides are such that they struggle to cross the blood-brain barrier. Fully synthetic proteins have been more fruitful and, so far, there has been remarkable success in limiting the progression of PD on mice. The lab has even filed for patents related to the work.

“Peptides are often chewed up by the machinery in our bodies,” Kumar says. “These molecules don’t get chewed up and they mimic the structures of those proteins. In a person with Parkinson’s, a protein will come along and bind, then another and another. Our molecules stop that. It looks like the same protein and sort of tricks the body, so it won’t keep on building clumps.”

More detailed information on the work can be found here and here , in a pair of articles in Nature Communications.

Stacia Fritz, an undergraduate researcher in Kumar’s lab, was also awarded a fellowship by the Parkinson's Foundation to carry out research in the summer.   In the past, Courtney Donnelly, another undergraduate student in the lab, also received a grant to further the work.

The project includes a broad set of interdisciplinary units, encompassing NSM and the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science , the departments of chemistry, biology and biophysics, as well as the Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging (KIHA).

Although it’s still relatively early in the process, Kumar says there’s potential to apply these scaffolds to other neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ( ALS) and even some cancers.

“There’s some really cool data and a lot of opportunity,” he says.

Kumar was also quick to point out that the students working in his lab are not just graduate-level students, but also undergraduates who served as authors in different parts of the work.

“We’ve been able to incorporate the work of a lot of students at different levels and that’s reflected in the authors on these papers,” Kumar says. “We work really hard, but it’s a collaborative environment.”

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