Creating and Implementing an Undergraduate Research Lab in Political Science

Abstract

Faculty members are increasingly recognizing the value of integrating high impact practices, such as undergraduate research, into the college experience. In this paper, I argue that one way of getting undergraduate students involved in political science research is to develop undergraduate research labs, wherein a small group of undergraduate students works collaboratively with a faculty member to carry out the research process from start to finish. I focus on how to develop and operate research labs at small to mid-sized institutions. I provide an overview of how I organized and conducted an undergraduate research lab and illustrate how the lab worked by describing a project that my lab recently carried out. I also describe how political science research labs can benefit students and political science programs. I end by reflecting on what I learned along the way, which I hope will be helpful to others who are considering developing similar experiences. Overall, I encourage other political scientists to develop undergraduate research labs but argue that, given the high teaching loads at many institutions, faculty should operate research labs as classes so that they count as part of one’s teaching load.

Keywords:

• Undergraduate research lab
• political science
• high impact practices
• undergraduate research

Notes

1 HIPs have the following traits: they demand considerable time and effort, facilitate learning outside of the classroom, require meaningful interactions with faculty and students, encourage collaboration with diverse others, and provide frequent and substantive feedback (Kuh 2008).

2 See Tables 1–3: https://www.radford.edu/content/dam/departments/administrative/high-impact/aacu-high-impact.pdf

3 At my university, my research lab counts as an upper-level elective in the political science program. We have 100, 200, 300 and 400 level courses in the program, and I offered it as a 300-level course.

4 Overall, 77% of the students in the lab were women, 50% were first generation college students, and roughly 10% were from a minority racial/ethnic group.

5 I used chapters from Buttolph Johnson, J., H. T. Reynolds, and Jason D. Mycoff. 2019. Political Science Research Methods, 9th edition. Sage.

6 Students read Sievert and McKee (2019) and Hopkins (2018).

7 Groups did not all work at the same speed, although it was typically possible to have a group that had it completed its work assist another group with data collection. Generally speaking, I did not set many ground rules for the group work. After the first few meetings of group work, I found that groups were generally on task and working hard (I think because this was a new and exciting experience and they wanted to take advantage of it). In addition, there were really no issues around group dynamics. Again, I think that people who enrolled in the lab were genuinely excited to be a part of it and were happy to be working on original research with a faculty member and fellow students in their program. Thus, students generally came to lab meetings with a positive and collaborative attitude.

8 The paper was desk rejected at the first journal we submitted to. It then received a revise and resubmit decision at Justice System Journal and was accepted after two rounds of revisions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aaron C. Weinschenk

Aaron C. Weinschenk is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. His research focuses on political participation, elections, and voting behavior. He has published in journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Political Research Quarterly, and American Politics Research.