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The positive effects of an undergraduate research experience on student learning, attitude, and career choice have passed from anecdote to systematic data. Many educators, particularly in the sciences, have come to see the potential for authentic undergraduate research to be a high-impact educational practice for achieving excellence in liberal education. In the past decade research on diese student experiences has revealed the extensive array of professional and personal benefits. Initial efforts to understand diese benefits started with evaluation of the relatively clear experience in which a student spent a summer working exclusively on research as an apprentice to a faculty scholar, typically in the sciences. Many students in summer science research programs - usually about ten weeks in duration, free of regular coursework -evaluate their experience by completing the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience . (SURE) survey, an online assessment instrument. An advantage of the SURE is that a stan dard set of potential learning gains are offered for evaluation by each student respondent. These gains include the research skills and personal development items described here.
The general taxonomy of benefits include student-reported gains on a variety of disciplinary skills, research design, information or data collection and analysis, information literacy, and com munication. Student respondents also evaluate their professional advancement through opportunities such as scholarly becoming part of a learning community, and relationships with mentors and peers. Professional development items include clarification of a career path, understanding the research process in the field, and understanding how scientists think. In addition, students evaluate gains in personal development, including the growth of self-confidence, independence of work and thought, and a sense of accomplishment (Lopatto 2006). Although studied independently of any of the Association of American Colleges and Universities' initiatives, these benefits of undergraduate research align well with the essential learning outcomes that emerge from initiatives such as Liberal Education and America's Promise (see Kuh 2008).
Student results from die SURE survey indicate diat most research experiences enhance intellectual skills such as inquiry and analysis, reading and understanding primary literature, communication, and teamwork. Some skills are positively correlated with program components. Students in programs that provide instruction in research ethics report higher gains in this area than other students; students in programs that require written and oral communication report...