This article reviews the state of Canada's undergraduate research opportunities (UROs) in the life sciences across various institutions. Survey data gathered in 2019 from 20 departments in 14 universities show that all responding departments offer well-established forms of research that include credit-based directed studies or honors-thesis…

Moreno Valley College, a two-year community college in Southern California, experiences an annual migration of cliff swallows. The presence of these birds inspired the development of the undergraduate research program Flying with Swallows. The assessment of the project indicated significant increases in qualitative student outcomes such as…

The article introduces the continuous course lab (CCL) as an alternative model for conducting undergraduate research in the humanities. CCL segments large-scale research projects into smaller-scale projects that are run over a series of semesters. The CCL model is unique in that it provides majors from outside the humanities with exposure to…

Learning outcomes can structure and enhance the undergraduate research experience, building skills such as critical thinking/problem solving, communication, and teamwork/collaboration. These skills often correspond to what employers desire in their recruitment of recent college graduates: students possess career competencies that result from…

Quantifying undergraduate participation in institutional research activities is challenging. This article describes an approach for estimating student participation in scholarly activities using a parametric model to follow the inflows and outflows of students in terms of classes (first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year students) and to control…

The authors discuss the Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) at University of Wisconsin--Whitewater, which pairs beginning students with mentors as paid research apprentices for one academic year. It seeks to encourage participation of students from underserved groups who are at higher risk of dropping out of college. RAP introduces students to…

This article discusses George Mason University's locally developed assessment survey instrument, the OSCAR Student Survey, in which students self-report on learning outcomes, attitudes, goals, personal and professional growth, and satisfaction items. Development of the instrument is discussed, as well as the methods used to achieve construct…

Undergraduate research in higher education has become a movement linked to institutional efforts at integrating high-impact practices and infusing transformative learning. University of Central Oklahoma's Diverse Student Scholars (DSS) is one such program of faculty mentorship that is hosted by a department of marketing within a college of…

As music programs at colleges and universities join the undergraduate research movement, many faculty and administrators may be unsure of terminology, educational practices, or ways to combine some of the creative aspects of music degree requirements into compelling undergraduate research projects. One of the biggest challenges is embedding…

This article discusses a set of projects that build on the following concepts: the private sector has the ability to fund undergraduate research projects, the private sector is hungry for projects that focus on the scholarship of application and engagement, and students can be empowered beyond a particular research project in this funding model.…

Programs involving research experiences for undergraduates (REUs) typically reflect either university-sponsored programs or programs funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that aim to facilitate students' research-based skill development. Despite the prevalence of research supporting the effectiveness of these programs, little research…

A theory of action outlining undergraduate research program inputs and desired outcomes was developed and used to guide implementation of Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) sections and to create assessment tools to measure attainment of program goals in both apprentice-model undergraduate research and CURE. Student survey…

Mentoring research and development often uses a mentor-protégé model, but research often takes place in teams. In this exploratory study, the authors identify the structures and prevalence of multi-mentoring teams by surveying undergraduate researchers about the people who helped them and the support they received. Research teams were common, and…