Effect of undergraduate research on students’ learning and engagement

Abstract

Effective engineering undergraduate programs should be well-structured to respond to the needs of students and prepare them for the workforce or further studies. Undoubtedly, the teaching and learning process should be student-centred to promote problem-solving skills and facilitate the generation of new knowledge by students. A capstone research project is one of the practices that aim to enable students to successfully move into either employment or graduate studies. In this study, a survey containing different categories was prepared to assess the usefulness of a capstone research project in achieving various outcomes, including personal, learning, and research perceptions, as well as other aspects such as supervision, career aspirations, safety matters, and hands-on experience . The survey was sent out to honours students who were carrying out an engineering capstone research project. The results suggested that an undergraduate research program can be an efficient tool in the teaching and learning process. Interestingly, the results showed that undergraduate research was unable to prompt students to choose their future career pathway or encourage them to pursue postgraduate studies. Defining projects that reflect the industry's needs with focusing on the society’s demands could present a possible solution to this issue.