Reflections on the Evolution of Undergraduate Research at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions Over the Past 25 Years

Two decades ago, when the author evaluated the impacts of Summer Research Opportunity Programs focused on minority undergraduates in STEM at 15 universities, blacks, Latinx/Hispanics, and Native Americans were dramatically underrepresented among PhD recipients in STEM fields. In the 20 years that followed, there have been significant increases in the representation of blacks and Latinx among STEM PhD recipients. The author discusses changes in research programs focused on underrepresented minorities over the last two decades, as well as the best practices that have not only enabled underrepresented minority participants to succeed in graduate school but also may improve the outcomes of any research program attempting to recruit and retain more undergraduates in STEM.

Quantifying undergraduate participation in institutional research activities is challenging. This article describes an approach for estimating student participation in scholarly activities using a parametric model to follow the inflows and outflows of students in terms of classes (first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year students) and to control for duplications. The goal is to obtain a participation rate (among a graduating class) of students who have at any time participated in a scholarly activity. An example is presented for East Tennessee State University (ETSU). Model outcomes are compared and generally found to agree with averages from multiyear responses by ETSU with the National Survey of Student Engagement. The model is flexible to allow for application to diverse program designs.

Communication is a diverse discipline that includes many social scientific, humanistic, and critical modes of inquiry. After elucidating several challenges to teaching a communication research methods course, this article describes a four-credit, one-semester “research incubator” that was piloted by two faculty members and seven students at a midsize, private, New England college in spring 2017. The incubator built upon the methods class, involving students in one of three projects: content analysis of race/ethnicity and character deaths in The Walking Dead, textual analysis of mortality and morality in The Walking Dead, and focus group analysis of podcast listener motivations. Assessment of students’ research and soft skills revealed that the course involved valuable experiences with methodological rigor as well as critical thinking, analysis, and group communication skills.

The national prominence of undergraduate research arises from both the myriad benefits offered for a wide range of stakeholders and the variety of modes in which this scholarly endeavor may be pursued. The evolution of undergraduate research in the United States parallels that of a social movement, with an array of participant entities that aspire to incorporate the research process into undergraduate curricula. Throughout its history, the Council on Undergraduate Research has contributed significantly to the extraordinary development of this form of engaged learning. Although it is thriving, the undergraduate research movement must address emerging as well as potential challenges facing higher education today to continue to flourish and serve greater numbers of students.

In the past decade, the assessment of undergraduate research experience (URE) and course-based undergraduate research (CURE) has evolved and significantly expanded, with hundreds of studies published in books, white papers, technical reports, and academic journals. Much of the work has focused on the impact of URE and CURE on students, leading to new insights about the importance of mentoring and student self-efficacy and the identification of essential features of URE and CURE. Studies focusing on the impact of URE on faculty members and institutions have remained limited. The advent of a variety of assessment instruments and the spread of this high-impact practice across all academic fields suggest that the timing is ripe for new areas of study.

For 60 years, the National Science Foundation’s commitment to undergraduate research experiences has shaped the course of undergraduate research opportunities, from apprenticeship model–based experiences to team-based and classroom-based collaborations for a diverse group of students. Scaling the opportunity so that students may participate in an equitable and inclusive way has been a priority since the inception of the program. Applying the growing research base in undergraduate science, engineering, and mathematics education to development of optimal research experiences for undergraduates is the next frontier.