Undergraduate Research Experiences in Biology: Alternatives to the Apprenticeship Model

Abstract

This is the first in a series of articles exploring some of the approaches advocated in the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education (AAAS, 2011a ), an effort within the biology community to address the needs of undergraduate education in the life sciences (Woodin et al., 2009 , 2010 ) in response to the dramatic and rapid transformations in biology in recent decades (National Research Council, 2009 ). The Vision and Change report describes a number of ways to meet the needs of the 21st-century undergraduate. Here, we address one of the changes advocated in that report—the call to “introduce the scientific process to students early, and integrate it into all undergraduate biology courses.” We review a representative sampling of recent innovations integrating scientific research experiences within the biology curriculum. Most (but not all) of the examples given are drawn from the recent literature and from projects presented at a recent meeting of principal investigators from the National Science Foundation's Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement/Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program (AAAS, 2011b ). We hope that this sampling will provide new insights and ideas that will encourage more faculty members to consider ways to involve their undergraduate students in research. In addition to outlining a variety of approaches being used, this article briefly addresses, first, the way in which different biological subdisciplines (e.g., ecology, molecular biology, genomics) and different types of institutions are incorporating this approach into their curriculum and, second, the outcomes that are beginning to emerge and the tools being developed to document and evaluate these outcomes. The opportunity to conduct independent research as an undergraduate has often been cited as the compelling experience that launches a scientific career (National Research Council, 2003 ; A. Roe, as cited in Lopatto, 2010 ). The benefits of such experiences have been chronicled both anecdotally (Cejda and Hensel, 2009) and in studies that span institutional types and disciplinary approaches (Russell et al., 2007 ; Lopatto, 2010 ). The apprenticeship model, in which students conduct independent research projects in an individual faculty member's laboratory, is a well-established approach to providing independent research experiences. As the demand for undergraduate research experiences increases, the strain on institutions and faculty trying to meet this demand becomes more evident. Whereas this approach is critical for providing students with an inside view of how science proceeds and for socializing them into the scientific community, it requires a great deal of financial and faculty resources. Thus, its reach is very limited. The apprenticeship model is especially difficult for institutions where research is not a large part of their institutional mission, and many students, particularly those from populations currently underrepresented in the STEM professional community, may not seek out these opportunities. The need for alternative ways of bringing the benefits of undergraduate research experiences to students and engaging them in the scholarly community is becoming increasingly evident.