The Influence of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program on Student Perceptions and Desire to Attend Graduate School

AbstractUndergraduate research opportunities are valued by university faculty and administrators in part because of the belief that they are useful for attracting students to graduate school. Other perceived benefits are that these programs improve students' engagement in their respective disciplines, enhance students' understanding of theory by application to practical problems, and improve students' oral and written communication skills. This study evaluates an eight-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Southern Methodist University to determine how the program influenced participants' perceptions of engineering research and their desire to attend graduate school. The program occurred over three consecutive summers involving students who were selected from a nation-wide pool of applicants. Unlike most retrospective-only, quantitative studies of students who participate in undergraduate research, the current study reports results of before-program and after-program surveys and focus groups conducted on-site. The use of qualitative methods to probe for global and specific attitudes toward engineering research provided a diagnostic element to the analysis that complemented typical learning outcome results. Participants indicated many positive aspects of the REU experience, including an increased understanding of engineering research, how to deal with uncertainty and setbacks in the laboratory, and gaining hands-on laboratory experience. Students said the experience would help them make a more educated decision regarding the pursuit of graduate studies, but in contrast to other published studies it did not necessarily increase their desire to pursue a graduate engineering degree. Positive outcomes of the program appear to be linked to the age of participants, with more positive outcomes associated with more mature students. Implications for managers and facilitators of undergraduate research opportunities are discussed.I. IntroductionThe importance of an undergraduate research experience is widely accepted and many recent studies have begun to document the positive effects on participants. Both qualitative and quantitative studies are being reported, often through surveys of student participants and sometimes their faculty mentors. The positive effects are reported as increased student interest in graduate school, increased engagement in their undergraduate studies, an increase in understanding of their field of study, and an increase in practical skills, such as problem solving, communication and information synthesis. The literature discussed below provided useful background for the planning of the REU site program, as well as items for the evaluation instruments employed at the beginning and end of the program.Influence of Undergraduate Research Experience on Students' Interest in Graduate StudiesUndergraduate research experiences often are viewed as methods to recruit students to graduate programs. Compton (1995) surveyed students entering engineering graduate programs at several large research universities, all of whom received their B.S. degrees at U.S. institutions. The survey found that of the 178 respondents, nearly 50 percent had previously participated in some form of research as undergraduates, and 80 percent of those students indicated that their research experience influenced their decision to pursue graduate school.Kremer and Bringle (1990) surveyed 22 students who previously participated in intensive undergraduate research in psychology on perceptions of their research skills in several areas. A control group of students with similar qualifications who did not participate in the program were also surveyed. Students who participated in research reported greater improvement in most research skills and were more likely to pursue a research career than non-participants.Morley et al. (1998) surveyed students who previously participated in an undergraduate research program in Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech, which was designed to attract minorities to graduate school in engineering. …