Empowering and Motivating Undergraduate Students Through the Process of Developing Publishable Research

Authors

Sue K. Adams, University of Rhode IslandFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of Original Version

2019

Department

Human Development and Family Studies

Abstract

Mentoring undergraduates in research is a truly rewarding endeavor. There are immense benefits for both students and faculty mentors who engage in high-quality undergraduate research mentorship (Bowman and Stage, 2002; Osborn and Karukstis, 2009). For students, the experience allows them to expand their skills and knowledge, increase self-efficacy and self-confidence, increase learning gains, and connect classroom learning to real-world settings (Palmer et al., 2015). Becoming part of a research lab can inspire future graduate studies or job paths in a certain field, and provide a competitive edge over peers (Shellito et al., 2001; Davis and Jones, 2017). For faculty, mentorship can promote the transfer of academic “DNA” and generate meaningful scholarship (Lancy, 2003). The focus of this paper is to discuss principles that I have found effective in guiding undergraduates to produce publishable research. These principles are largely informed by learner-centered practices (Cornelius-White, 2007) including rapport building, facilitating motivation, empowering students by honoring their ideas and opinions, encouraging problem solving, scaffolding, and internal and external self-reflection.

Citation/Publisher Attribution

Adams SK (2019) Empowering and Motivating Undergraduate Students Through the Process of Developing Publishable Research. Front. Psychol. 10:1007. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01007

Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01007

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.