Geoscience Education Research Project: Student Benefits and Effective Design of a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience

ABSTRACT

Undergraduate research has been shown to be an effective practice for learning science. While this is a popular discussion topic, there are few full examples in the literature for introductory-level students. This paper describes the Geoscience Education Research Project, an innovative course-based research experience designed for introductory-level, nonscience majors. Participating students complete all steps of a scientific research project, starting with the research question, “What do college students think about ___?” Students fill in the blank with a geoscience topic of their choosing. Support for the students is ongoing through detailed directions and multiple checkpoint assignments with timely feedback to ensure they are on task. This design and support can be used as a model for other undergraduate research experiences. Student reactions to the benefits of participating in the research project and the effectiveness of its design were analyzed. Students' benefits from this research project included increased content knowledge, improved skills, and positive affective responses, such as interest leading to motivation. In this study, students were also found to have an increased appreciation of science and scientists, without necessarily having the desire to become scientists themselves. Student reactions to the design of the Geoscience Education Research Project emphasized the importance of an appealing topic, careful planning and conveying of project information, frequent deadlines and feedback, and communication by students beyond just the professor. Based on these findings, recommendations for successful implementation of course-based, introductory-level undergraduate research experiences are given.

Key words::

• undergraduate research
• two-year college
• interest
• course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE)
• high-impact teaching activity

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the students who participated in the study and thoughtfully reflected on their experiences. Anonymous reviewers helped to make this a more robust article.

Notes

¹ It should be noted that we are using the term “Geoscience Education Research Project” to imply to the readers that this can be broadly applied across all domains of the geosciences (e.g., geology, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, etc.), but for the students in these geology classes, it was titled “Geology Research Project.”