Case Study: An Introduction to Biological Research Course for Undergraduate Biology Students

Undergraduate research experiences have been shown to be extremely beneficial for students, as have preparatory experiences that help students to develop scientific reading, writing, and communication skills prior to engaging in research. Here we describe a seminar course for first-year university students designed as an introduction to biological research. Our aim was to give students a broad introduction to biological research and the nature of science through reading and discussion of primary scientific literature, writing about science, and engaging with the scientists who performed the research. An additional goal was to make students aware of the various research programs of faculty members in our department toward better matching of students with potential faculty research mentors. Student feedback indicated that this course helped them to feel more confident in reading and writing scientifically. By giving novice students experience and training in reading and communicating about science in this course, we are able to better prepare them for upper division seminar courses as well as course-based and laboratory or field-based undergraduate research experiences.