The article, “Student Effort in and Perceived Benefits from Undergraduate Research” by Salsman et al., (2013), focuses on the benefits of student’s participation in undergraduate research in higher education. The writers of this article have recognized that the benefits of undergraduate research to the students have taken different forms ranging from the light touch and the heavy duty engagement in the research process. In a survey that was conducted on 44 undergraduate students who took part in undergraduate research projects showed that the number of hours that students took on the research projects correlated to the benefits they achieved from the projects. The aim of the study was to measure the perceived benefits that were brought by students participating in undergraduate research project. In granular level, the students’ efforts had a positive impact on their communication, data collection, information literacy, personal development, responsibility, professional advancement and knowledge (Salsman et al., 2013). The article also showed that the time that was taken by the researcher or the mentor had a positive impact on the students’ efforts evidenced by their higher intent to publish their work. Furthermore, the article also showed that the students’ test scores were directly related to the different tasks that they took such as developing theory, defining sample, writing reports and interpreting the results. After considering the benefits that came along with students’ participation in undergraduate research projects, the article suggested that “heavy duty” involvement of students in the research projects in the higher learning institutions would be beneficial to them (Salsman et al., 2013).

Despite there were many benefits that were identified in different research findings, more questions were raised. These questions included:

1. What is the amount and nature of the work students do when conducting undergraduate research?
2. How involved are faculty mentors in undergraduate research?
3. How the work that students and mentors do is related to the perceived benefits? (Salsman et al., 2013).

After an exploratory analysis was conducted on 44 students from the Midwestern University, the results indicated that the undergraduate research projects had a significant impact on the perceived benefits compared to the influence of the mentors and the students’ nature of work. In fact, more specific analysis showed that the strongest relationship was between the total numbers of hours worked and the responsibility benefits. In addition, the article showed that the total number of hours worked improved students’ interaction and communication in oral, visual and written modes. The results also showed that there was a strong relationship between the number of hours the students spent on the research projects and the data collection and interpretation benefits. Overall, the article showed that the nature of the work, the involvement of the mentors were not the most crucial factors in the development of various skills in research project, but their ability to organize and interpret the result. For example, the article shows that the research projects were helpful in making the students to develop collaborative and leadership skills. I take the same position that the work the students and the mentors do is strongly related to the perceived benefits (Salsman et al., 2013).

The student’s efforts had a lot of influence to how they benefited from the research projects. The article shows that the number of hours the students spent on research projects improved their knowledge of safety techniques and ethical standards. The article identified several benefits of undergraduate research which included their intent to publish their work; as a result, research projects improved their knowledge as well as earned them reputation in the field of researchers. However, there is something that surprised me; that the knowledge from research projects would help students improve their resumes when applying for jobs. The working definition of Notre Dame College of Science states that the undergraduate research helps students to develop skills that potential employers would be looking for. However, this definition has been disputed by researchers such as Buckley et al. (2008) whose findings have been supported by other several researchers. Undergraduate research has been associated more with the personal developments and leadership than just improving the resumes (Salsman et al., 2013).

The knowledge on analyzing research will help me a lot in writing peer reviewed article and literature reviews. I think that the knowledge will be more useful in research projects since it has help learn how to develop research questions, research methodology, and interpretation of results.

References

Salsman, N., Dulaney, C.l., Chinta, R., Zascavage, V., & Joshi, H. (2013). Student Effort in and

Perceived Benefits from Undergraduate Research. College Student Journal, 47(1), 202-211