Physical Sciences

Leaders: Jeanne Pemberton, Professor of Chemistry, University of Arizona
Glenn Starkman, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Associate Provost for the Undergraduate Initiative, Case Western Reserve University

Recorder: Santanu Chaudhuri, Doctoral Student, Department of Chemistry, Stony Brook University

Undergraduate research in the physical sciences is the stepping-stone for careers in science and engineering. The United States' leadership in the scientific world is directly linked to students' preparedness and depth of knowledge. Preparing future generations to inherit this powerful knowledge-based empire requires a concerted effort to promote undergraduate research as an indispensable part of the undergraduate curriculum. Striking a balance between classroom education and research-based education has never been more relevant. Our progress is highly dependent upon identifying the barriers and developing ideas to surmount them efficiently. In this session, a number of different barriers were identified and strategies for overcoming them to produce change were put forward. At the end of the session, participants generated a compendium of ideas and recommendations for promoting greater undergraduate participation in research that they could take back to their campuses.

Main Points

Barriers to Undergraduate Research:
The barriers to undergraduate research can be broadly categorized into three main areas.

1. Barriers related to the students
2. Barriers related to the faculty
3. Barriers related to the institution

Barriers Related to the Students:

• One of the most commonly encountered hindrances to engaging undergraduates in research is the students' ability to do the work; they may not have the skills required to undertake research in a particular area. The skill sets of students at different levels are dependent on the curricular hierarchy in the physical sciences, so overcoming this barrier requires a concerted effort.
• The students' involvement is directly dependent upon the perceived value of the research undertaken. The research work needs to be connected to each student's career goals in order to create value and get more involvement. A pre-medical student and a biochemistry major heading towards graduate school, for instance, will probably have different goals and interests.
• The quality of advising affects a student's research experience. To equally improve the research experience in all disciplines, it is important to create guidelines for advising undergraduates to assure correct placements.

These issues are often considered major barriers to undergraduate research initiatives. The value of research needs to be emphasized at the freshman level, to attract more interest from students at early stages. This requires significant curricular reform. Encouraging students often requires knowing them individually, which is not always possible when teaching big general-level courses. Prior knowledge about students' majors is essential for those advising students.

The aim of research at the undergraduate level needs to be defined more carefully. Research can be defined in a non-specialized way and at simple levels to introduce students to the methodologies commonly followed in all forms of research. Examples include applications of the basic laws of physics, writing programs for data analysis, conducting bibliographic research, and learning some basic tools used in active research. Students can be introduced to existing general research opportunities through science fairs, meetings of the American Chemical Society and other scientific organizations, and scientific fraternities and honor societies that bring students with similar interests together to exchange ideas.

The term "research" itself is intimidating to many students, based on the common perception of research as a complicated and time-consuming activity. To overcome this barrier, we should stress not the idea of "research" itself but rather what we want to achieve by involving undergraduates in research (without necessarily calling it "research"). The objectives for students engaged in undergraduate research are:

• To become independent thinkers and come up with problem-solving strategies
• To know how the scientific disciplines and the scientists work
• To gain increased awareness of the frontiers of the field
• To learn technical skills commonly used in research
• To understand and utilize the huge volume of results generated by others
• To learn to use research as a problem-solving methodology based on logical reasoning and scientific thinking
• To know how to present the results of their analysis - in the form of either a journal paper, thesis, project report, poster or formal presentation in front of an audience

Examples of Effective Programs

• Astrophysics faculty are involving students in developing computer programs to look at the huge databases containing information on the universe.
• Many Chemistry departments have courses where students are encouraged to search databases such as the Cambridge Crystallographic Database and the Protein Data Bank, or run programs to match DNA sequences.
• A service-learning program at Berkeley has successfully managed to integrate socially- relevant research into undergraduate research activities through projects such as checking water quality and micro-level pollutants and finding the lead content in paints. Having a social goal often helps motivate students to undertake research.

Barriers Related to the Faculty:

• The reward structure, including available faculty time, time commitment from graduate student and postdoctoral fellows, prospects of funding, and space and equipment requirements
• Perception of payback

The infrastructure of undergraduate research requires a high commitment from the faculty, so it is important to motivate faculty to become actively engaged. By effectively dealing with the current shortcomings of the existing system, undergraduate research can potentially become the most valuable experience in a student's education. Rewards include teaching load considerations, salary incentives, public recognition, and credit towards promotion or tenure.

Universities need to actively embark on faculty training programs on effective mentoring of undergraduates. In many cases, undergraduate students work on projects that are ill defined and lack the resources to produce results. The lack of quality control in undergraduate research experiences is still a major stumbling block. Yet the success of the undergraduate research experience depends largely on the nature of the project and the available resources, so undergraduate research must be a pre-planned and budgeted part of a faculty member's total research effort. Some departments have started to make space requirements, assuming, for instance, that three undergraduates occupy the space of a single graduate student.

New professors joining a university need to have it made clear that supervision of undergraduate research is considered as a part of their job. Tenure packages should have a mechanism for recognizing candidates with a strong inclination towards undergraduate research. Faculty time constraints have always been a major concern. Undergraduate research can substitute for some of the classroom-teaching load if we recognize the importance of faculty spending dedicated time with the undergraduate students to introduce them to research methodologies. The money that REU students bring in is often not enough of an inducement for big labs to participate in the program. A strong case needs to be presented to the community to bring about change. Assuming altruistic motives on the part of the faculty can be a barrier to pointing out the real incentives:

• Undergraduate research work produces papers that can be published and help the faculty member get tenure
• Young faculty may benefit by enlisting undergraduates because the undergraduates may help them with their work. This in turn may enable them to produce more. In addition, these faculty may gain fresh insights through their students, and they may learn a lot about teaching.
• Recognition of undergraduate research supervision should be part of all tenure packages.
• Involving undergraduates will improve chances for funding: The NSF grant proposal criteria, for example, now stress undergraduate research.

Some mentoring methods have proved useful in the past. The following suggestions were generated in the discussion:

• Rotate students among labs at the undergraduate level.
• Match projects to students' interests.
• Institute curricular and non-curricular experiences that provide research exposure to the bottom 40% of the class.
• Encourage flexibility to accommodate special needs.
• Start research early with the aim of teaching simple tools to aid core research.
• Publish or showcase undergraduate research results for mutual benefits.
• Involve graduate students to increase the pool of potential mentors; undergraduates may also be comfortable communicating with graduate students about questions they have. One way to initiate graduate student supervision of undergraduates is by asking undergraduate students to synthesize starting material for a complicated synthesis project; a graduate student can supervise the work to ensure that it is done right. Graduate students can also explain their own projects to undergraduates, to widen the undergraduates' exposure to the various research projects within a single research group.

Barriers Related to the Institution:
The institution plays a major role in promoting undergraduate research as an integral part of its mission. It is recognized that the best way to promote a policy is to begin at top. This encourages individuals and helps to build a culture throughout the institution. The institutional barriers start with resources:

• Faculty time
• Lab space
• Funding support in the form of dedicated grants
• Library facilities
• Technology infrastructure

The biggest problem in this area is providing space and facilities for research. It is an especially daunting task to manage resources if undergraduate research is made a mandatory curricular requirement across all disciplines. Proper resource allocation and coordination among disciplines is of prime importance. This will require some major changes in the existing administrative structures. Reforming the reward structure at the institutional level will also make it easier for the departments to release additional funding or administrative manpower dedicated to undergraduate research.

It is helpful if outside agencies recognize institutions that have been active in promoting undergraduate research. For instance, participants noted that the US News and World Report rankings now include a reference to undergraduate research experiences among the criteria. (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankacadprogs_brief.php)

Recommendations

The concept of Service learning is a relatively new approach that allows undergraduates to be involved in research at an early stage with an emphasis on social responsibility. The Web site http://www.servicelearning.org provides a clearinghouse of information including funding opportunities, examples of syllabi, and "how-to" packets.

Participants unanimously favored awarding teaching credit to faculty members for mentoring undergraduate research students. Supporting undergraduate research and mentoring should be considered central to the reward structure.

Faculty members can act as agents of change. They need to speak up in promotion and tenure and other policy meetings to include undergraduate research in tenure criteria and overall faculty performance appraisals.

Including a description of current undergraduate research in orientation packages for new faculty members can be a good way of introducing new faculty to the culture of undergraduate research. The inclusion of requirements for conducting research with undergraduates in hiring criteria is not as widespread as it should be. Only 25% of advertisements for new faculty members in Research Universities mentioned undergraduate research as a requirement.

Universities need to pre-allocate space and other resources for undergraduate research.
Institutions should incorporate "Undergraduate Research" as a part of their mission statements, to encourage faculty members at all levels to become more involved.

Research at the freshman level should receive greater emphasis. It should present research as a problem-solving philosophy rather than as a scary task generally only performed by advanced students.

Many institutions and organizations have journals dedicated to showcasing undergraduate research achievements. If such a publication is peer-reviewed, it exposes students to the experience of publishing research results without requiring the amount of research necessary for publication in a regular journal. This approach encourages students to participate in research projects and recognizes them for their efforts. Some examples -

American Institute of Physics, Journal of Undergraduate Research in Physics: http://www.aip.org/education/sps/ultraviolet/jurp.htm

Department of Energy, Journal of Undergraduate Research: http://educationlink.labworks.org/edulink/journal/

Journal of Young Investigators: http://www.jyi.org

California Institute of Technology Undergraduate Research Journal: http://www.curj.caltech.edu/

MIT Undergraduate Research Journal: http://web.mit.edu/murj/www/index6.html

University of Rochester, Journal of Undergraduate Research: http://jur.rochester.edu/index2.html

University of Utah, Undergraduate Research Abstracts: http://www.lib.utah.edu/epubs/undergrad/

An additional way to showcase undergraduate research is to arrange a forum where undergraduates can present posters on undergraduate research.
Encouraging students to go to other institutions to pursue research opportunities helps exchange ideas and the culture of research.
Some institutions have developed Web sites that list undergraduate research opportunities, to help students select areas of interest from a collection of projects and faculty profiles. See, for example, Washington University's Computer Science department page: http://cs.seas.wustl.edu/urop/.

Resources

Web sites:
US News and World Report rankings: (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankacadprogs_brief.php)

Service Learning: http://www.servicelearning.org