Promoting Undergraduate Research in Science

Many students are interested in majoring in biology because they liked it in high school or because they have plans to attend medical school. But when majoring in science, discouragement can set in when faced with the daunting task of memorizing many facts, which are frequently forgotten once the course is over. Today's student often feels bored and/or intimidated by science. While classroom instruction pursues the goal of critical thinking, the actual performing of research is what requires conscious attention to and practice in the process of critical inquiry.1 Students often miss out on the excitement and rich experiences that come with participating in undergraduate research. As faculty, we should encourage more students to be excited by science. Too often however, the underlying rubric of learning is an osmosis theory that assumes students cannot help but benefit from exposure to science.1 This is generally untrue, at least with regard to the efficiency of learning and the quality of what is learned. Educational experiences are needed to foster the type of problem-based learning that occurs in a research project. Students typically graduate perceiving research as a series of studies designed, carried out, and interpreted during two-hour laboratory periods.2 Lab sections tend to teach students how to perform scientific techniques using cookbook methods. Likewise, lecture courses are too focused on the knowledge of science rather than the process and experience of science. By promoting undergraduate research, students can join in the excitement that accompanies first hand investigations of important issues. These hands-on research experiences enhance the education of the undergraduate, irrespective of their career goals, by exposing them to various elements of critical thinking and problem solving skills. Faculty Responsibilities Faculty are responsible for promoting, encouraging, and supporting research in their disciplines. Faculty should involve undergraduates in their research and design research projects where undergraduates can play significant roles. This means allowing students the opportunity to do more than just the scut work. Teachers ought to display their research findings outside their laboratories, indicating the undergraduates who are co-authors. Such action serves as a way to advertise the faculty member's research interests to prospective student researchers. Encouraging research assistants to present their data at regional conferences is another form of involvement. If attending a regional meeting is prohibitive because of finances, organize a conference at your institution. For instance, at my school, Montclair State University, we present an annual Sigma Xi Conference. We should require that students write research papers, with the opportunity to perform re-writes, to hone their scientific literacy skills and perform oral presentations on their research projects as part of the curriculum. Students could then be encouraged to present their work to a university-wide audience and ultimately to the scientific community at regional or national conferences. Science faculty should incorporate their research findings into their teaching. The teaching/research dichotomy does not have to be set in stone. When I share my research findings with my students during classes, they are very interested and inquisitive. We as faculty also must be responsible for improving the research environment at our institutions. For example, many libraries at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) do not have subscriptions to key scientific journals. This must be considered when assigning scientific literature research projects to students. We should petition our institutions to contribute additional funds to procure the journals or we can provide students with websites that offer free access to full-text journal articles. The scientific disciplines also can form partnerships with industry, as has been done through the Merck/American Association for the Advancement of Science Undergraduate Science Research Program.3 Research opportunities also can be incorporated into the curriculum in the form of coursework, independent studies, and apprenticeships in research. One limitation of a program that requires frequent and intense faculty-student interaction is the difficulty of staffing. This can be assuaged if faculty are enthusiastic about serving as mentors and if they can accommodate all of the students interested in participating in research experiences in a given semester. We need to monitor the placement records of undergraduates who received research training and compare that to those who did not. From my own experience, students who possess research skills are often extremely well suited for applied research positions as well as non-research jobs. Consequently, the scheduling of these research-based or techniques courses and experiences must be flexible enough to accommodate traditional and nontraditional students (those who must often shoulder heavy family and work burdens). Academic researchers at PUIs are in ideal positions to serve as role models to future scientists. We must apply for funding for student research, such as the Council on Undergraduate Research's Summer Research Fellowships and other extra- and intramural support. By instituting a weekly colloquium where guest speakers present their data, students would interact with scientists involved in cutting-edge research and be exposed to a variety of research areas, new methodologies, and novel treatment approaches. A byproduct of the interactions is a stronger, well-rounded department. Potential Advantages of Undergraduate Research Students develop the ability to solve situation-specific problems in research models. Undergraduates can use the skills acquired during research as a springboard for many careers.4 The skills of critical thinking, problem identification, and technical proficiency are highly valued by employers. In addition, students can benefit in the following ways by participating in research: 1) learning how to operate scientific equipment, 2) conducting experiments and taking responsibility to follow a project from start to finish to build self-confidence, 3) analyzing results, organizing ideas, and learning from failures, and 4) learning to be a professional by sharing work which allows students to feel the inclusive part of science. Engagement in science is important in the maturation of undergraduate students. When they participate in research, students carry out a type of detective work that involves gathering evidence and hypothesizing to explain the mechanisms that regulate certain fundamental processes, such as apoptosis. Experimental results can affect hypotheses by confirming them, extending them, modifying them, or rejecting them. Learning is intense when one is doing research. In the pursuit of primary data, one acquires skills that cannot be found in books, including time-management techniques and the ability to think quickly and solve difficult problems. Acquiring these skills encourages faculty-student interaction, stimulates new scholarship, and prepares students to better adapt to workplace demands. Research breaks down the divisions between students and teachers, and between academic disciplines. Most of all, because students are working closely with faculty members, they have ongoing opportunities for regular advising and mentoring. Students who are engaged in research integrate previous science courses that they have taken. They begin to realize that what they learned in a genetics course is very applicable to a vertebrate embryology course. The skills learned in other courses are brought to bear in producing a theoretically grounded piece of empirical research.1 By carefully analyzing how data are presented in scientific publications, or by failing repeatedly before successfully executing a molecular biology technique, students learn how to ask questions and to put facts in context.5 Students should also be allowed to participate in the preparation of manuscripts for publications and grant applications. These exercises encourage students to think like scientists by engaging them to learn by observing, writing scientifically, and formulating hypotheses. You learn to become a scientist by doing science, not by studying science in textbooks. Undergraduate research experiences lead to better prepared and motivated individuals (graduate student, professional school student, educator). The advantages of undergraduate research are by no means restricted solely to students. The researchers derive teaching and research benefits from the training of students: pleasure in a student's learning experience and progress in solving a research problem.6 Faculty members receive invaluable help from undergraduate students in an attempt to provide answers to their own research objectives and the added benefit of having data to analyze for publications. The expectations that come with the possibilities of scientific discoveries are extremely exciting. Undergraduate students' enthusiasm and ingenious approaches to research problems can be very stimulating to the research program. Working with student and faculty collaborators on research problems of common interest is rewarding, intellectually satisfying, and best of all, fun. Reginald Halaby, is an assistant professor in the department of biology & molecular biology at Montclair State University Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, halabyr@mail.montclair.edu References 1. D.J. Hartmann, Undergraduate research experience as preparation for graduate school, American Sociologist, 21:179, 1990 2. K.C. Feltner, "Undergraduate research," The Scientist, 7[8]:12, 1993. 3. American Association for the Advancement of Science web site (www.aaas.org). 4. R. Halaby, "Encouraging and fostering the non-research choices of students," Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly, 19:188-9, 2000. 5. D. Morgan, "New methods teach science by observation, hypothesis," The Scientist, 5[4]:1, 1991. 6. L.L.M. Hoopes, "For undergraduates, hands-on research and book learning go hand in hand," The Scientist, 7[4]:10, 1993.

Promoting Undergraduate Research in Science

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