Surveying Faculty Perspectives on Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity: A Three-Institution Study

Abstract

The authors surveyed faculty (n = 239) at three diverse institutions to probe perceived motivations for and barriers to involvement in undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity (URSCA) across scholarly disciplines. URSCA mentors were significantly more likely than nonparticipants to express proficiency in involving students in their research/creative activities, to acknowledge student contributions to their scholarly work, and to state that URSCA mentoring should be considered in personnel decisions. More than half perceived that their institutions did not place sufficient value on mentoring URSCA. Results suggested that institutional URSCA cultures could be enhanced by building mentoring into faculty workload, tenure materials, and promotion documents; using early, course-based research to improve student readiness; providing faculty development on research mentoring aimed at underrepresented disciplines; and seeking novel funding sources targeted at faculty-mentored URSCA.

Encouraging or Obstructing? Assessing Factors That Impact Faculty Engagement in Undergraduate Research Mentoring

“…The survey instrument built on previously published work (Jones and Davis, 2014) and has been described in another publication (Morrison et al, 2018). In addition to collecting basic demographic information such as gender, race, and rank, the questionnaire asked faculty members to report on their research and scholarly activities, to include mentoring URSCA, and institutional environment.…”

“…The study sample draws from the Pathways to Undergraduate Research Experiences (PURE) multi-institutional study faculty survey (Morrison et al, 2018). Conceived by a collaborative group of faculty and administrators, a survey was developed to assess and understand the factors that potentially influence how faculty members participate in UR experiences across diverse institutional contexts.…”

“…A total of 276 faculty members (total population = 1372, response rate 20.1%) completed the questionnaire. Additional information regarding this instrument and qualitative evaluation of the responses has been previously reported (Morrison et al, 2018). Due to non-responses on key items, our working sample is 223.…”

High impact: Examining predictors of faculty-undergraduate coauthored publication and presentation in psychology

“…At the institutional level, direct support for undergraduate research (e.g., in the form of time and money to conduct the research as well as rewards and recognition for faculty who mentor undergraduates) facilitates faculty-undergraduate research collaboration. Otherwise, financial constraints can be a challenge, with faculty citing both a lack of money for lab supplies [ 7 , 15 ], and the need to personally find ways to fund students [ 6 ] as barriers to mentoring undergraduates in research.…”

“…Finally, institutional support in the form of recognition by the administration can be critical [ 18 ]. Unfortunately, faculty often report that research is encouraged and ostensibly valued, but not actually built into the formal reward structure of the university [ 7 , 15 , 19 , 20 ]. A common complaint is that “My institution ‘values’ undergraduate research, but in terms of annual evals and promotion and tenure, it is not really given any weight” [ 6 , p. 145].…”