TY - JOUR
T1 - Early year undergraduate researchers’ reflections on the values and perceived costs of their research experience
AU - Ceyhan, Gaye D.
AU - Tillotson, John W.
N1 - Funding Information:
Engaging in research requires a time commitment. Some of the participants did not anticipate the time and amount of work scientists devote to their research. This is a learning experience and may differ in each research setting, and usually is not easy to foresee unless seeing the approximate daily work needs to be done to conduct the research. Providing an early research experience to college students may give them an idea about the lifetime of a research project and the amount of time and work needed to engage in the tasks (Kuh, ). Participants of this study were a selected group of low-income students. Even though the SUSTAIN project provided financial support to project participants, some of them still felt the need to work in external job(s) to support their financial needs. Therefore, a few participants commented on the indirect financial burden of engaging in research as it was hard for them to find part-time jobs while trying to engage in research for several hours a week. To decrease the financial burden, and give students the feeling of professionals, UR programs, institutions, and research centers should seek financial support for undergraduate researchers.
Funding Information:
For some of the participants, research experience was useful in building professional relationships early in their college years and was useful in providing new opportunities for them. Five participants received a grant from the Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement Scholarship program at the university, two participants received a scholarship to attend a summer research program in Austria, one participant received a position at the university undergraduate research program over the summer, one participant received an award at the university, and one participant received an internship with a neurosurgeon at Upstate Medical University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - Background: Prior research reported that motivational beliefs that individuals attach to specific tasks predict continuing interest and persistence in the task. A motivational approach may be particularly useful for understanding undergraduate students’ engagement with research in their first and second years in college. The current study utilizes the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation to qualitatively explore how much and in what ways early year undergraduate researchers value their research experience and what kinds of costs they associate with it. Results: The results revealed that intrinsic value had the highest expression in participants’ motivation to engage in research. The second most expressed value type was the utility value of undergraduate research with regards to obtaining the desired outcomes, and attainment value played the least important role in participants’ motivation to engage in research. Findings also indicated that some of the participants associated a cost(s) to their research experience. The highest mentioned perceived cost was opportunity cost, where participants commented on losing other valued alternatives when engaging in research. Participants commented on the time, effort, or amount of work needed to engage in research, and a few participants commented on the emotional cost associated with their research experience in terms of the fear of failure. Conclusion: As perceived cost is the least studied in the expectancy-value framework, this study contributes to cost values within college students, particularly about early year undergraduate researchers. The findings of this study can form the basis for future work on exploring ways to increase the values and decrease the costs students experience in their undergraduate research experiences.
AB - Background: Prior research reported that motivational beliefs that individuals attach to specific tasks predict continuing interest and persistence in the task. A motivational approach may be particularly useful for understanding undergraduate students’ engagement with research in their first and second years in college. The current study utilizes the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation to qualitatively explore how much and in what ways early year undergraduate researchers value their research experience and what kinds of costs they associate with it. Results: The results revealed that intrinsic value had the highest expression in participants’ motivation to engage in research. The second most expressed value type was the utility value of undergraduate research with regards to obtaining the desired outcomes, and attainment value played the least important role in participants’ motivation to engage in research. Findings also indicated that some of the participants associated a cost(s) to their research experience. The highest mentioned perceived cost was opportunity cost, where participants commented on losing other valued alternatives when engaging in research. Participants commented on the time, effort, or amount of work needed to engage in research, and a few participants commented on the emotional cost associated with their research experience in terms of the fear of failure. Conclusion: As perceived cost is the least studied in the expectancy-value framework, this study contributes to cost values within college students, particularly about early year undergraduate researchers. The findings of this study can form the basis for future work on exploring ways to increase the values and decrease the costs students experience in their undergraduate research experiences.
KW - Expectancy-value theory
KW - Motivation
KW - Undergraduate STEM education
KW - Undergraduate research
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U2 - 10.1186/s40594-020-00248-x
DO - 10.1186/s40594-020-00248-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85093967051
SN - 2196-7822
VL - 7
JO - International Journal of STEM Education
JF - International Journal of STEM Education
IS - 1
M1 - 54
ER -