Undergraduate Research

This section provides guidance on how physics departments and programs can meaningfully engage undergraduate students in research. This includes how to integrate research experiences throughout your program, support and enable faculty to successfully mentor undergraduate researchers, support students participating in research experiences on and off campus, ensure equitable access to these experiences, and promote and fund such experiences. Undergraduate research covers a range of potential experiences, including participation in the discovery of new knowledge and research-training experiences that emphasize the process and practices of science.

Benefits

Engaging undergraduate students in meaningful research experiences has been identified as a high-impact practice, has been shown to provide a wide range of benefits to students, and can be a powerful tool for recruiting and retention, particularly for students from marginalized groups. Students gain direct experience of the practices, standards, and conventions of the discipline, as well as content knowledge, technical skills, communication skills, and the ability to analyze and propose solutions to complex, open-ended problems. Through the experience of participating in the physics community, students gain the opportunity to better understand what it means to be a physicist and decide whether to pursue research as a career.

Effective Practices

Thematic grouping (1, 2, 3, ...)

Actionable practice (A, B, C, ...)

Implementation strategy (i, ii, iii, ...)

1. Collaboratively determine the different goals and roles for research experiences in your department, e.g., research as a process of discovering new knowledge or as training that develops research skills.
  Discuss the value for students of research in different experimental, computational, and theoretical areas, including physics education and applied research.
  Develop explicit strategies for recruiting and supporting students from marginalized groups in undergraduate research, recognizing that a colorblind approach is inadequate to successfully and fully include these students. See the section on for details.
  Establish program-level student learning outcomes for the research skills your department believes students should acquire, and a curriculum map that identifies the activities (courses and on- and off-campus opportunities) that support students in achieving these outcomes.
  Discuss program-level student learning outcomes for research skills with all research mentors (e.g., faculty, instructors, postdoctoral research associates, graduate students, and technicians), and establish common expectations of student performance and how students will be evaluated.
  Periodically review program-level student learning outcomes for research skills, the research experiences available to students (e.g., experiences within and outside the curriculum, on and off campus, and for students from their first years through senior years), and the curriculum map that connects them. Make adjustments to improve alignment.
  Track student participation in and outcomes from undergraduate research (see Programmatic Assessments below for examples of data to collect), and use the results to identify successes that could be expanded and areas that need improvement.
  Recognize the diverse approaches to engaging students in research, e.g., differences in how advisors work with students, the kinds of problems and methods they choose, the number of student participants and how students work with each other, and different time scales for projects and publications. Discuss department expectations with all faculty, particularly new hires and pre-tenure faculty.
  Establish common faculty expectations around treatment of research students, e.g., that faculty will treat students with kindness, support students’ goals and interests, respect students’ other responsibilities, and have humane expectations of quantity and timing of work hours.
  Encourage interdisciplinary research projects and projects focused on community, business, and industry needs.
2. Ask faculty candidates to write short descriptions and timetables of their research plan, including how they will involve undergraduate students in research and how they will supervise and mentor these students.
  Discuss with candidates and new hires how they will provide meaningful research experiences for undergraduate students while advancing their scholarly agendas.
  Hire diverse faculty who can provide research role models for diverse students. See the section on for details.
  Guide candidates in requesting start-up funds and/or external grant supplements to support their research plans.
  Recognize and encourage faculty and faculty candidates who are enthusiastic about engaging undergraduates in research but who have not previously done so.
3. Recognize undergraduate research mentoring in faculty evaluations, e.g., for retention, tenure, promotion, and merit.
  Clarify expectations for whether and how much faculty are expected to engage undergraduate students in research, and how it will be “counted” in performance reviews, e.g., as teaching or as part of research expectations.
  Streamline faculty workload to allow time to effectively mentor undergraduate student researchers, e.g., minimize new preparations and schedule courses and meetings to provide faculty with a full day for research.
  Integrate research supervision into instructional workload calculations, e.g., by creating a course so that faculty can get teaching credit for working with undergraduate students in research.
  Ensure that research mentors (e.g., faculty, instructors, postdocs, graduate students, and technicians) are given training on working effectively with students, including, e.g., effective mentoring, inclusive practices, cross-cultural mentoring, ethics, power dynamics, disability awareness, conflict resolution, discrimination, and harassment. Collaborate with appropriate offices within your institution (e.g., your human resources office; your teaching and learning center; or your office of equity, diversity, and inclusion) and/or see Resources below for external training opportunities.
  Ensure all research mentors are aware of and use best practices for working with students from marginalized groups, e.g., see “Culturally Aware Mentorship” under Resources below.
  Discuss effective mentoring strategies both within your department and with other departments at your institution.
  Develop guides outlining expectations for research mentors, regarding, e.g., frequency of meetings with students, availability of mentors, and how to create and maintain a supportive work environment.
  Build a budget to support research expenses (e.g., travel, equipment maintenance, and supplies) within your department, within a group of departments, or at another appropriate institutional level.
  Develop and support a culture of applying for grants with undergraduate research support included. Guide faculty on sources of internal funding (e.g., supplies and travel grants) and external funding, (e.g., NSF, NIST, NASA, NIH, DOE, and the National Space Grant Consortium).
  Advocate for personnel and financial support from your institution for maintaining research equipment that undergraduates use, e.g., through maintenance contracts or hiring a staff member to maintain and build equipment and train students to do so.
  Periodically review how many students each faculty member funds to participate in undergraduate research, to ensure that all students have equitable access to research opportunities and that faculty and students are aware of available resources.
4. Provide multiple pathways within and outside the curriculum for students to participate in research (e.g., course credit, work study, course-embedded experiences, bootcamps, summer research, , and promotion of NSF REU opportunities) and guide students through the process of applying for and participating in these experiences.
  Develop and promote four-year degree plans that incorporate formal research experiences. Communicate that they are available and encouraged for all students as part of the major.
  If you do not have the resources for every physics major to have an individual research experience, consider implementing a required course that teaches key research skills through mini research projects or other CUREs.
  Encourage faculty to incorporate activities that address the program-level student learning outcomes for research skills when revising courses and curricula.
  Use your curriculum map to ensure that student research activities are connected to one another throughout the curriculum, from foundational courses to .
5. Provide opportunities for all students to participate in research, not just those who appear enthusiastic or high-achieving according to traditional criteria such as GPA and class performance.
  Recognize that, depending on their backgrounds and whether or not they have seen people like them doing research, students may not be equally aware of or feel equally welcome in research opportunities, and some may need individual encouragement to participate.
  Provide and promote paid research opportunities, recognizing that unpaid positions are often inaccessible to students who must work to pay for college.
  Systematically track which students are participating in undergraduate research, and look for and address sources of inequity.
  Create and/or connect with student support programs (e.g., early research programs, research cohort models, peer mentoring programs, identity-based student organizations, and STEM-wide programs for students from marginalized groups) to nurture a community of scholars and reduce isolation.
  Provide students with a professional environment that is safe and harassment free. See the section on for details.
  Provide and organize adequate space for individual and group research projects, including off-hour access (if appropriate, and only with appropriate safety precautions).
  Provide mechanisms to recognize students for their accomplishments and efforts, e.g., congratulatory emails and letters, awards, and recognition ceremonies.
  Provide opportunities for students and alumni to give formal and informal feedback on their research experiences (e.g., surveys, end-of-semester social events, and exit interviews of graduating seniors) and use this feedback to improve undergraduate research in your program.
  Develop and maintain formal structures to report and address problems in research mentoring relationships and research groups, to surface the concerns of vulnerable students who might not come forward through informal mechanisms.
6. Inform students about program-level student learning outcomes for research skills and how the curriculum, on- and off-campus experiences, etc., can support these outcomes.
  Highlight the value of research activities in cultivating skills that prepare students for careers and graduate school, and the weight that admission committees place on such research experience when evaluating graduate school applications.
  Ensure that the recruiting and selection process for research students is fair and equitable, especially if your department does not require all majors to participate in research, e.g., by consciously addressing implicit bias. See the section on for details.
  Consider having research mentors visit relevant first-year courses and talk about their work at an appropriate mathematical and scientific level.
  Use department seminars, advising sessions, and your department’s public media (e.g, website, social media, newsletters, and marketing materials) to promote and publicize available research experiences for undergraduates.
  Publicize research done by current and former students as well as its impact on their education, e.g., through seminars, poster sessions, and highlighting of students’ publications and presentations on your department website, wall displays, and other promotional materials.
  Emphasize the value of research advisors' letters of recommendation for students’ careers, graduate school applications, and scholarships.
1. Discuss students’ short- and long-term goals for projects, and use these goals to set clear expectations based on students’ available time and interests.
  Design projects with elements that students can finish in a fixed length of time, e.g., in a summer, quarter, semester, or academic year.
  Match the timeline of the project with defined deliverables and dissemination plans, e.g., if the experience extends over multiple semesters, incorporate end-of-semester papers and presentations; if the experience is a single semester, consider early progress reports that are iteratively revised.
  Start a student research project with straightforward elements; incorporate increasing complexity as the student experiences success.
2. Emphasize student agency, giving students multiple opportunities to make critical decisions that guide the research.
  Provide students with some independence to explore a part of the research that interests them and arrive at their own conclusions.
  Build resilience by normalizing failure and setbacks as part of the scientific process and emphasizing the importance of learning from mistakes.
  Encourage students to ask questions and recognize that not all questions have immediate answers.
  Ensure that students know there may be many solutions to a problem and that research can be a nonlinear process.
  Provide scaffolding for students and other junior researchers to participate in discussions in research group meetings, e.g., by providing opportunities for them to present and get feedback on work in progress, paying attention to who is talking and how much during discussions, and setting aside time for them to ask questions or make comments.
  Encourage faculty to leverage their existing collaborations so that students can interact with multiple research mentors and expand their professional networks.
3. Provide research mentee training for students, e.g., using the “Entering Mentoring” curriculum. See Resources below.
  Develop a guide that outlines professional expectations for students (e.g., with respect to behavior, performance, and maintaining an inclusive, harassment-free environment) for distribution to undergraduate students at the start of their research projects.
  Discuss technical aspects of research projects with students, recognizing that they may be unfamiliar with the disciplinary language.
  Promote training on relevant laboratory equipment and computational techniques.
  Establish and maintain a culture of safety consciousness with regular discussions of safety policies and procedures.
  Provide training to undergraduate students and their research mentors that addresses ethics topics including plagiarism, data management, data representation, confidentiality, and human subjects protections. See the section on for details.
  Collaborate with appropriate offices within your institution (e.g., human resources; equity, diversity, and inclusion) to train undergraduate students on institutional policies and responsibilities related to harrassment, discrimination, and conflict resolution.
4. Encourage and support peer-mentored research, e.g., by having more experienced research students mentor and train incoming research students, with faculty oversight and appropriate training. See Resources below.
  Provide opportunities for students to work on research in teams by discussing the value of teamwork in careers, training students to work in teams, and evaluating teamwork.
  Promote the use of peer evaluation of student research products (write-ups, posters, presentations, theses, manuscripts, etc.) to mimic proposal and manuscript review as well as provide formative feedback.
  Create and sustain a community to nurture students as scholars and reduce isolation, e.g., through sharing meals, field trips, informal gatherings, and presentations with peer feedback.
  If there aren’t enough researchers in each research group to have a shared group space, create a cohort of research students by providing a shared departmental space and encouraging students to help each other acquire essential skills, collaborate on common problems, and ask each other research-related questions.
  If there are not enough students in your program to form a cohort, consider partnering with other departments in your institution or other institutions in your area.
  Manage shared spaces for research to ensure they are inclusive and welcoming for all students, especially those from marginalized groups. For example, set clear expectations for appropriate behavior, have windows and open doors (where possible), have faculty regularly check in with students and monitor what's happening, establish rules for behavior and what kinds of things can be on the walls, and check in with any students who aren't using the space to find out why. See the section on for details about making spaces welcome for all students.
5. Provide opportunities for students to give informal and elevator-pitch presentations of their research at appropriate and varied venues, e.g., events for prospective students, alumni, and community members.
  Provide opportunities and funding for students to give formal presentations of their research on campus (e.g., at seminars and poster sessions) and off campus (e.g., at undergraduate and professional conferences).
  Provide opportunities and support for students to ask questions and engage in each other’s work during presentations, to build community and support students’ growth as scientists.
  Encourage faculty to support students in publishing their internal reports, procedures, theses, and/or manuscripts (e.g., in conference proceedings, undergraduate research journals, professional journals).
1. Advocate for inclusion of undergraduate research in your institution’s strategic plan and mission statement.
  Advocate for resources, including space, from administrators, legislators, donors, etc., by communicating the distinctive value of undergraduate research for students (see Evidence below) and its contribution to the region’s economic development, e.g., preparing students for the regional and national workforce, producing patents, and supporting the economy through research-related internships.
  Prioritize obtaining funding for paid research experiences to provide equitable access to these opportunities for students from all socioeconomic backgrounds.
  Advocate for institutional financial support for student researchers, e.g., stipends, free or low-cost summer housing for students doing summer research, supplies, and travel to present at conferences.
  Advocate for institutional financial support for faculty mentoring undergraduate student researchers, e.g., start-up funding, mentor stipends for summer research, grant-writing support, and professional development related to mentoring.
  Collaborate with your development or fundraising office to raise funds to support students and faculty participating in research, e.g., via one-time funding or endowed programs.
  Consider applying for an NSF REU site or other similar research site program, possibly in collaboration with other departments or institutions, to fund and promote a summer undergraduate research program on your campus.
2. Display student research products widely, e.g., on your institutional and departmental websites, in promotional materials, and in alumni newsletters.
  Collaborate with other departments and your administration to support campus-wide undergraduate research activities and initiatives, e.g., institution-wide research celebrations, summer research programs, and undergraduate travel/supplies grant programs.
  Publicize the outcomes of undergraduate research to institutional stakeholders such as trustees, alumni, donors, businesses, and the student government association.
  Use data on student participation and successes in undergraduate research for fundraising and in grant proposals. See Programmatic Assessments below.
  Foster disciplinary and interdisciplinary research connections among faculty across your institution, to strengthen undergraduate research at your institution.
  Recognize that undergraduate research may have many stakeholders (e.g., donors, those who want to use it for institution and faculty recognition) who can shape the student experience in positive as well as negative ways (e.g., by applying pressure to achieve particular outcomes).

Programmatic Assessments

Identify which of the above Effective Practices you are implementing and track the results of implementing them.
Conduct an inventory of ways in which your program addresses or could address program-level student learning outcomes for research skills (see Resources below), both in and outside of class. Assess correlation between these outcomes and departmental offerings and activities.
Conduct an inventory of the number and range of undergraduate research opportunities available to your students within your department, institution, and region. Track which subdisciplines or interdisciplinary areas these opportunities cover.
Conduct an inventory of places where research experiences are or could be incorporated within the curriculum, such as in Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs).
Track how many students and which students are participating in each of the available research opportunities, including with each faculty member. Use the results to assess each opportunity for accessibility, equity, and alignment with student interest.
Evaluate your department’s culture around undergraduate research, e.g., by counting mentions of undergraduate research in faculty meeting minutes or by conducting student and faculty perception surveys (see questions 2 and 3 below).
Evaluate student experiences using external assessments such as the Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA) (see Resources below).
Survey or interview current students and alumni of your program who did and did not participate in undergraduate research experiences. Ask what factors supported their participation and made participation effective, what obstacles prevented their participation, and what other supports could have helped them more fully participate.
Survey or interview students who participated in research experiences, including CUREs, about their satisfaction with the project and their research mentor, and about what they learned from the process. Assess whether they learned, e.g., how to be a better researcher, content related to specific physics topics, research skills, and career preparation content knowledge.
Survey students about their attitudes towards undergraduate research and their perceptions of departmental culture, faculty support, and peer attitudes.
Have students complete self-assessments of their learning and development at milestones throughout the degree program and compare their self-assessments before and after participating in research experiences.
Analyze the demographics and interests of your majors, likely in partnership with your office of institutional research. Correlate demographics with survey responses to determine how well your program is serving the undergraduate research needs of all students.
Create a list of faculty research areas and potential opportunities for undergraduate research.
Survey faculty and other research mentors about their perceptions of undergraduate research in your program, their interest in mentoring undergraduate researchers or developing CUREs, the main challenges they face in mentoring undergraduates, and what they need to better support undergraduate research.
Track student participation and successes in undergraduate research, perhaps in collaboration with your office of institutional research. Determine the fraction of students in your program who participate in undergraduate research.
Evaluate student achievement of program-level student learning outcomes for research skills using mentor feedback, department rubrics for products of research (e.g., presentations, theses, and publications), grants, awards, etc.
Survey or interview alumni to learn about their research experiences at your institution and how these experiences impacted their post-graduation activities.

Evidence

The evidence to support these practices comes from numerous sources, and there is an extensive peer-reviewed literature on the benefits of undergraduate research in the sciences, as well as a much smaller literature that is physics-specific. While large-scale studies have found clear evidence that undergraduate research confers benefits, because these experiences vary so widely, it is more difficult to determine the causal mechanisms behind these benefits. The following is a small sample of the many studies on the benefits of undergraduate research.

S. Laursen, A.-B. Hunter, E. Seymour, H. Thiry, and G. Melton, Undergraduate Research in the Sciences: Engaging Students in Real Science, Jossey-Bass (2010).
G. D. Kuh, “High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter,” American Association of Colleges and Universities (2008).
M. J. Chang, J. Sharkness, S. Hurtuado, and C. B. Newman, “What matters in college for retaining aspiring scientists and engineers from underrepresented racial groups,” Journal of Research in Science Teaching 51(5), 555–580 (2014).
N. G. Holmes and C. E. Wieman, “Examining and contrasting the cognitive activities engaged in undergraduate research experiences and lab courses,” Physical Review Physics Education Research 12, 020103 (2016).

Resources

The practices in this section are discussed in several reports and guidebooks on undergraduate research, including:

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “Undergraduate Research Experiences for STEM Students: Successes, Challenges, and Opportunities,” The National Academies Press (2017).
N. Hensel (editor), “Characteristics of Excellence in Undergraduate Research (COEUR),” Council on Undergraduate Research, 2012.

Training and education programs for research mentors and mentees:

Physics Research Mentor Training Seminar: A guide co-produced by the Center for Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) and APS with a mentor-training curriculum for mentoring undergraduates in research environments. This manual provides a week-by-week curriculum that can be used to improve mentoring skills
Entering Mentoring: a program produced by CIMER that provides training modules, curricula, and interactive sessions for training research mentors and mentees in STEM
Culturally Aware Mentorship (CAM) Training: a program from the National Research Mentoring Network that supports mentors and mentees in addressing cultural diversity matters. The program includes a one-hour online module, a six-hour intensive training, and a skills survey for self-assessment.
Mentor Tips and Training: guidance from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, including an online research mentor orientation program
Mentor Training: The University of Minnesota offers a 90-to-120 minute online course preparing faculty to be research mentors
Peer Mentoring in STEM: training from the Canvas Network

Assessment tools to evaluate the quality of student experiences using self-reported data:

T. J. Weston and S. L. Laursen, “The Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA): Validation for Use in Program Evaluation,” CBE-Life Sciences Education, 14(3) (2015). The URSSA is a survey for undergraduate students to evaluate their own learning in research experiences.
The Survey of Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE) and the Classroom Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) survey were created to study the effects of undergraduate research experiences and “research-like” experiences, respectively.

Statements:

Numerous physics and astronomy professional organizations have made statements in support of undergraduate research experiences:

American Physical Society Undergraduate Research Statement (2014).
American Association of Physics Teachers Statement on Research Experiences for Undergraduates (2009).
American Astronomical Society Statement on Undergraduate Research Experiences (2019).
Society of Physics Students Statement Regarding Undergraduate Research (2008).
Council on Undergraduate Research Division of Physics and Astronomy Statement on Undergraduate Research (2009).

Undergraduate Research

How to Use This Guide

Benefits

Effective Practices

Effective Practices

Promote research for undergraduate students in your program or department

Define the role of undergraduate research within your department

Recruit and hire faculty who will engage undergraduate students in research

Support faculty and others who engage undergraduate students in research

Provide opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in research throughout their time in your program

Support undergraduate students to participate in research

Communicate the availability and value of research experiences to undergraduate students

Design meaningful research experiences for undergraduate students

Create research projects with clear goals and multiple milestones

Provide authentic research experiences

Provide students with necessary training for conducting research

Create opportunities for students to support each other in research

Provide opportunities for students to share their work

Create an institutional infrastructure to support undergraduate research

Advocate for undergraduate research to be an institutional priority

Promote undergraduate research experiences within and beyond your institution

Programmatic Assessments

Programmatic Assessments

What are the mechanisms through which your program currently provides undergraduates with research experiences? What are the additional mechanisms through which it could do so?

How do students perceive and understand undergraduate research and your program's approach to providing research skills?

What resources, experiences, perceptions, and knowledge do your faculty and other research mentors bring to undergraduate research?

How successful is your program at undergraduate research? How has its success changed over time?

Evidence

Resources

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