Use of Peer Mentoring, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, and Archival Datasets for Engaging Undergraduates in Publishable Research

摘要

We agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Sharon Brehm, the 2007 President of the American PsychologicalAssociation, who stated: “I believe that undergraduate research is one of the three most valuableexperiences that colleges and universities can offer their undergraduate students (KeynoteAddress, 24th Annual Mid-America Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference).” We wouldadd that engaging in undergraduate research can be enjoyable and rewarding, for students as wellas their faculty mentors. There is nothing quite like observing students becoming interested andengaged in research, planning and carrying their own projects, getting excited to analyze their data,and then experiencing the pride of presenting or publishing their project. This is perhaps one of thebest aspects of being a psychology faculty member.Teaching at large state universities, or at small liberal arts colleges, comes with certainchallenges for conducting research with undergraduates. Other authors have addressed models forinvolving undergraduates in high-quality research and encouraging presentation and publicationof findings(e.g., Gibson et al., 1996; Hughes, 2014; McKelvie and Standing, 2018). A plethora ofresearch literature also addresses challenges of improving writing (Stellmack et al., 2012; Jorgensenand Marek, 2013; Greenberg, 2015) and statistical skills (e.g., Lyle and Crawford, 2011; Lim et al.,2015; Hartnett, 2016); or for a truly novel approach to teaching statistics, see Irving (2015). Otherpractices, such as fostering interest in quality research during introductory psychology courses, arealso beyond the scope of our article.Our article focuses on challenges inherent in engaging undergraduate students in high quality,publishable research at underfunded colleges and universities, which often have fewer resourcesdedicated to conducting research (lack of time, participants, equipment, and other support) andwhose faculty have high teaching loads and service commitments. We also focus on the difficultiesof researching certain topics and describe some potential solutions that could include collaborativeefforts and utilization of archival data.