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Undergraduate research experiences-experiences that include doing original research while being mentored by an experienced researcher-have a high status in contemporary higher education. The 2002 report from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College, advocates more undergraduate research activities. Major sources of research funding, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), provide support for undergraduate research. National organizations such as the Council on Undergraduate Research, Project Kaleidoscope, and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research provide platforms for faculty discussion of undergraduate research and student presentations of undergraduate research. We may well wonder why undergraduate research is seen as such a promising activity, and if the activity lives up to its promise.
The undergraduate research experience may be the epitome of engaged learning. Undergraduate research is valuable because it sets the occasion for attaining a wide range of educational goals. As a single experience it may facilitate empowered learning (including communication, problem solving, and teamwork), informed learning (allowing the student to study the natural and cultural world), and responsible learning (permitting the study of social problems and the self). It promises benefits that reflect the National Student Survey of Engagement (NSSE) student engagement benchmarks-high academic challenge, active collaborative learning, intense student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experience, and supportive campus environment (Kuh 2003). Moreover, it can be situated as a capstone senior experience or a first-year experience; it can be housed in the sciences, social sciences, or humanities; it can occur as a dispassionate intellectual exercise or a form of social action; and it can be done at the home campus or abroad.
The Benefits of Undergraduate Research
But what precisely are the benefits of the undergraduate research experience? The literature on undergraduate research is filled with anecdotes, endorsements, and assertions that the benefits are self-evident. The lack of solid information about these benefits led my colleague Elaine Seymour and me to propose a study of undergraduate research to "clarify, and estimate the relative importance of, the benefits of 'good' undergraduate research experiences." Performed under the auspices of a National Science Foundation Research on Learning and Education grant, our initial research on the undergraduate research experience involved a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology aimed at...