Edited by: Marianne Fallon, Central Connecticut State University, United States
Reviewed by: Kevin Holmes, Colorado College, United States
This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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When budgets are limited and teaching loads are high, colleges and universities often face challenges to provide opportunities for faculty development and superior undergraduate research experiences. However, conducting research in one's field and allowing undergraduates to engage in this research can deeply enrich the experience of both professors and students (Kuh et al.,
Wofford College is a 4-year, residential, undergraduate liberal arts college. The psychology program graduates 25–44 majors each year (
Wofford's psychology department prepares its majors to produce peer-reviewed research by incorporating and progressively building upon research methods in most courses offered in the major. Empirical research, data analysis, critical thinking, and writing begin in their first introductory lab course and advance continually through their senior year (National Research Council,
While the classroom provides the core course material commonly expected in most psychology programs (such as Learning, Sensation and Perception, or Cognitive Psychology), its laboratory component organizes upper-level students to work together on a single novel experiment designed for publication.
Learning and Adaptive Behavior is a required semester-long lab course offered once or twice each year by one of the authors [AKR] with around 24 students. We realized that our students would benefit more from the active, hands-on critical-thinking approach provided by original, verifiable, scientific research as a research team than they would by exposure to demonstration labs that are widely provided as research experiences (National Research Council,
We ask all RTCC students to work in two-person teams as the class carries out the major research project. Each team splits the daily responsibilities for running their two rats, yielding 3–4 h per week per student. Each team writes a major research report in APA style in which they analyze and describe data from all subjects in the experiment. They also describe the data from their two rats to evaluate consistency across the different teams. By writing their graded research reports, students learn the role of statistical inference while working with data that they collected, and how to work both as a two-person team and as part of a larger research team. Writing their research report helps them learn how their research may create new knowledge in the field, and structured feedback strongly emphasizes appropriate ways of explaining their scientific research to other scholars (
A self-selected group of 3–5 students from the course represents the class as they present this research in a formal oral presentation at the Wofford College Science Research Symposium held at the end of each semester. We normally invite these students to become coauthors of the manuscript that the professor and students prepare together and submit after the course is over. Of course, not every experiment results in publication, but many do. To achieve publication, the professor may need to dedicate part of the following summer to writing and revising the manuscript with students (those willing to do the extra work of earning co-authorship after the course is over). This design has been highly successful and exposes these students to the rigors of the professional peer-review process. The course requires hard work, but students proudly speak about this experience for years. While the professor must put in substantial effort before and after the semester, this effort is usually not an increase in the steps needed for the professor to do this research as normal professional development outside of the course context. Professors could also involve students in the preparation of the RTCC experiment by offering elective course credit in experimental design.
Developing these RTCC courses is one way for the teacher/scholar to produce publication-quality research with student co-authors within the professor's normal teaching load and have the research funded by the teaching budget (“teaching through research mentoring”). Various designs of this RTCC can be implemented in any core laboratory course in the major, and the implementation details would vary across topics. We have offered this single RTCC as a program requirement for about 10 years, continually making improvements and working out the kinks. Now that we know that this course is highly effective, other Wofford psychology professors teaching core lab courses have the option and flexibility of including similar team-based research into their labs, creating their own RTCC. Naturally, this option is also available to readers of this paper and can be modified for different institutions, such as students becoming participants during class time, when class sizes are large or at institutions with many commuter students.
The senior thesis often represents the capstone of a student's education in psychology. These sorts of culminating experiences have been shown to be a fruitful learning tool which also makes students attractive to future employers (Kinzie,
Given these considerations, the psychology department at Wofford College requires a one-semester apprenticeship-based senior thesis to be completed by every psychology major. The RTCC and other laboratory experiences provide an excellent background to carry out and write a publication-quality senior thesis. Each of our seven full-time psychology professors mentors a small research team every academic year. This senior thesis is considered a laboratory course as part of the faculty credit load. By working in teams of 3–6 students, the daily responsibilities for carrying out the research project (experiment, data analysis, and research report) can be shared, which allows larger, higher-quality projects designed for publication to be completed within the timeline. Each professor designs the thesis project in his or her field of study and prepares for the research to start as the semester begins. The research team collaborates on all aspects of the research report and presents their research in a formal, college-wide oral presentation at the Science Symposium held at the end of each semester.
A second component of the senior thesis generally occurs in the first half of the semester while students are running the experiment(s)—the integrated review of the research literature written individually by each student (
After the semester is over and students have presented their research at the symposium, the professor decides whether the research is appropriate for publication or whether more research is needed next year. Professors often encourage these students to become coauthors of the manuscript, conference presentation, or poster that the professor and student co-authors prepare and submit after the semester is over. Some graduating students opt out. Though this differs from many traditional senior thesis programs where each student conceives of his or her own project, this design allows
The beauty of the RTCC and the Apprenticeship-Based Senior Thesis is that both are considered laboratory courses. Thus, funds that are set aside for the annual teaching budget can be used to conduct research within the faculty member's research area as part of the laboratory course. As a result, financial resources for all lab courses have been available reliably every semester. Much of this research is submitted for publication with student coauthors in peer-reviewed journals under the professors' guidance and contributes to the professor's professional development. Including the RTCC and Senior Thesis as part of the curriculum allows a unique opportunity to give undergraduates outstanding research experiences, while allowing professors to thrive within their own area of study without increasing their teaching load. This model could be adapted to different types of institutions as the data collection takes place in the context of a course. We have found since implementing this curriculum that while teaching loads did not increase,
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Here are some recent articles with student coauthors from my RTCC on Learning and Adaptive Behavior. Each article contains one or more of our experiments related to skill learning—the central theme of our research. RTCC students read these articles in chronological order to understand the research, the evolving research questions, and how they (too) can become coauthors.—AKR.
Reid, A. K., DeMarco, G., Smith, K., Fort, T., and Cousins, E. (2013a). The influences of guiding cues on motor skill autonomy in rats.
Reid, A. K., Folks, N., and Hardy, J. (2014). On the dynamics of stimulus control during guided skill learning in nonhumans.
Reid, A. K., Futch, S. E., Ball, K. M., Knight, A. G., and Tucker, M. (2017). Assessment of progressively delayed prompts on guided skill learning in rats.
Reid, A. K., Nill, C. A., and Getz, B. R. (2010). Changes in stimulus control during guided skill learning in rats.
Reid, A. K., Rapport, H. F., and Le, T.-A. (2013b). Why don't guiding cues always guide in behavior chains?
Here are some articles that have come out of the apprenticeship-based senior thesis from my lab, all examining the effects of stress and emotion on memory.—KRMS
Mickley Steinmetz, K. R., Anderson, A., Brasher, K., and Brehmer, T. (2017a). Cortisol and stimulus-induced arousal level differentially impact memory for items and backgrounds.
Mickley Steinmetz, K. R., Knight, A. G., and Kensinger, E. A. (2016). Neutral details associated with emotional events are encoded: evidence from a cued recall paradigm.
Mickley Steinmetz, K. R., Sturkie, C. M., Rochester, N. M., Liu, X., and Gutchess, A. H. (2017b). Cross-cultural differences in item and background memory: examining the influence of emotional intensity and scene congruency.