Researching undergraduate social science research

Abstract

The experience(s) of undergraduate research students in the social sciences is under-represented in the literature in comparison to the natural sciences or science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). The strength of STEM undergraduate research learning environments is understood to be related to an apprenticeship-mode of learning supported by more experienced (post-graduate) peers, often through ongoing research projects. Studies of undergraduate research reveal that this is not typical in the social sciences, and students report facing specific challenges to the development of their identities as researchers that include fear, intellectual confusion and emotional unsettlement. This paper examines how a social science learning environment, designed as a research study itself, fostered beginning researchers communities of practice, realised a distinct mode of apprenticing based on peers' similarly peripheral community membership, and enabled students to reframe emotional unsettlement. It argues that, effectively mediated, talk can powerfully improve undergraduate social science research students' experiences.Keywords: undergraduate research, social science, researcher-identities, communities of practice, student involvement, emotion Introductory DiscussionThis study developed as a response to feedback from a group of third-year full-time undergraduate students in an English university who, on commencing their capstone dissertation module, reported frustration and disappointment with the summative assessment grades from an Introduction to Research Methods module in their second year of study. This paper illuminates how beginning researchers communities of practice can improve social science undergraduate pedagogy. It explores the role of emotion(s), the Post-print copy of article available at:http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. 1080/13562517.2016.1183621 Published online: 11 May 2016 significance of talk and a unique mode of apprenticing possible in undergraduate social science research. It argues that creating opportunities for 'student involvement' (Astin 1999) can support social science undergraduates to make connections into and from their researcher-identities.The students were studying a social science discipline: Education Studies.Research is an integral part of the programme, with modules drawing on, and examining, research in each of the three years. Similarly, positioning students as researchers is embedded within the programme -growing from tightly structured first year modules in which students gather and consider original data through interviews, Informal feedback about the second year Introduction to Research Methods module had indicated that students were frustrated with, what they perceived as, low grades in proportion to the effort they expended on the module assessment (a written report of a pilot research project). They had associated increased effort because they had worked on the assessment over an extended period of time (atypically for many, starting to write during the early we...

Undergraduate Disabled Students as Knowledge Producers including Researchers: A Missed Topic in Academic Literature

“…Being a knowledge producer, including being a researcher, is a role increasingly linked to undergraduate students [1,[140][141][142]. According to Palmer "an undergraduate education needs to ensure students graduate with higher order skills that prepare them for today's increasingly complex society and economy, and academic dispositions that are developed particularly well through research and inquiry-based learning opportunities" [43] (p. 415).…”

Undergraduate research, learning gain and equity: the impact of final year research projects

“…The claims for the importance of undergraduate research and its particular role in boosting student engagement would suggest that, on average, the grades for the research project should be higher than for other classes, though this assumption is not certain. The literature on research methods teaching in the social sciences suggests that demanding classwork may help students achieve good learning gains through challenging expectations but may also result in lower grades and more negative student evaluations (Rand, 2016). However, the literature on undergraduate research has not identified any tend towards negative student perceptions or problems with persistent underachievement.…”

“…Approaches to undergraduate research in the natural sciences, which already include labwork in the curriculum and can include undergraduates on larger research teams, are not as adaptable to the social sciences or humanities. Undergraduate research in these latter disciplines often takes the form of independent projects or honours theses and dissertations, which are graded for credit and, subsequently, tend to emphasise the efforts of the individual student and often forbid collusion with other students (Lopatto, 2006;Rand, 2016). Few studies compare or evaluate across the natural and social sciences (Hathaway, Nagda, & Gregerman, 2002;Russell et al, 2007), and studies comparing the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities in the same analysis are even rarer (Hu, Kuh, & Li 2008;Lopatto, 2006;Parker, 2012), so little is known about the impact of these differences across disciplines.…”

“…Finally, much of the literature on undergraduate research is based upon the natural sciences. Scientific research with large-scale projects including research groups of academic staff, postgraduate supervisors, and undergraduate members can be effective but is largely inappropriate or unrelated to practice in the humanities and social sciences (Lopatto, 2006;Rand, 2016). The question then remains of whether the natural sciences benefit more from undergraduate research because of the disciplinary nature of knowledge acquisition and more appropriate models for undergraduate participation.…”

“…Much of the literature has focused upon the natural sciences with less attention paid to the social sciences and humanities (Ishiyama, 2002;Rand, 2016). Further, much of this research is based in the United States, where undergraduate research is often provided as a non-credit-bearing summer or extracurricular experience, typically consisting of a period of time spent in labs, and is limited to select groups of students due to resource constraints (Linn, Palmer, Baranger, Gerard, & Stone, 2015).…”