Academic Clubs as a Mechanism for Introducing Students to Research
Although many departments have opportunities for undergraduates to participate in research, many qualified students fail to seek out opportunities to work with faculty in this way. The present study attempted to encourage participation in research through a group project conducted under the auspices of an academic club with the assistance of the club president who served as project coordinator. Participating students, who both designed and conducted the project, reported positive feelings about research in general and the project upon which this study was based. Academic club research projects may serve as a nonthreatening introduction to research for students who are unlikely to seek independently more individualized experiences. Author Notes: Department of Psychology, State University of New York College at Buffalo, 1300 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo, NY 14222. Electronic mail may be sent to norviljm@buffalostate.edu. Thanks to all of the members of the Buffalo State College Psychology Club Research Team for their hard work and enthusiasm and to Karen O'Quin for her constructive remarks on an earlier draft of this paper. The importance of undergraduate research in improving students' critical thinking has been reported frequently (e.g. Starke, 1985; VanderStoep & Shaughnessy, 1997). The methodological and statistical reasoning that may come from research has also been shown to transfer to other areas (Nisbett, Fong, Lehman, & Cheng, 1987). Although the benefits have been well-demonstrated, what is less clear is how to motivate students to participate in what may seem to be a frightening endeavor (Frank & Rickard, 1988). In some settings, including small introductory classes, it may be appropriate to conduct classroom projects to introduce students to research (Lutsky, 1986). However, the opportunity to conduct a fairly large project exploring a new hypothesis, rather than a replication of previous work, may be limited. The research or experimental methods course also offers a good opportunity for research projects (Chapdelaine & Chapman, 1999; VanderStoep & Shaughnessy, 1997). However, because of the intense supervision required, this may not be ideal in large classes. Further, when research courses are situated late in the curriculum, such as at the 400-level, students may not learn about research until it is too late to conduct an independent project before graduation. In such circumstances, faculty often rely on students to seek opportunities or faculty may approach obviously gifted students. However, potentially talented students may go unnoticed by faculty who have many students and, thus, students may miss opportunities either because of fear or because they do not know they exist. One solution is to offer a group project outside of class in an environment open to all students: the academic club. Academic clubs provide students with a variety of experiences ranging from debates to film series to fund raisers (Satterfield & Abramson, 1998). A research project is a logical extension of these activities that are designed to engage students in the field. The Psychology Club at this college is an active group that usually draws 15 or more students to events, with a core of 10 to 12 students. Among recent events was a bone marrow typing drive, designed to recruit students from throughout the campus to have their bone marrow placed on the National Marrow Donor Program's (NMDP) registry of potential donors. Because little research has been conducted exploring differences between donors and non-donors and because students were already enthusiastic about the drive, this project offered a potentially ideal introduction to research. It was expected that students who participated in a group research project through the Psychology Club would report feeling interested in research and would express an expectation of conducting research again in the future. …