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Research Paper
Using High Risk/Transformative Research Projects to Introduce Undergraduates
to the Research Process
John K Berch*, Maureen K Murphy, and Doba D Jackson
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Huntingdon College, Alabama 36106, USA,
*Corresponding author, John K. Berch, Email: jberch@hawks.huntingdon.edu
Received March 26. 2017, revised June 9, 2017, accepted June 11, 2017
Publication Date (Web): June 11, 2017
© Frontiers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
Abstract
High Risk/Transformative (HR/T) research projects possess an inherent excitement in their potential for enormous returns. This excitement can be used to inspire students through the research process as they perform literature searches, design experiments, perform their own investigation methods, and participate as a discoverer in the research process. As a consequence, students are empowered and grow in confidence as they realize they are performing “their” work, as opposed to following known procedures. In addition, HR/T projects remove the burden of success allowing students to focus solely on the research process instead of achieving a specific result. However, most assessment metrics are product-focused, so we present here new metrics that can be used to evaluate the students based on the process of research in lieu of the typical product based metrics.
Keywords
Chemical education research, Upper-division undergraduate, Graduate education/research, General public, Curriculum, Laboratory instruction, Testing/assessment, Problem solving/decision making, Undergraduate research
Introduction
High Risk/Transformative (HR/T) Research is research driven by ideas that stand a reasonable chance of radically changing our understanding of an important existing scientific concept, of leading to the creation of a new paradigm or field of science. Such research is characterized by its challenge to current understanding or its pathway to new frontiers (2007 NSF Proposer). The W.M. Keck Foundation defines high-risk and transformative research to:
“include, for example, questions that push the edge of the field, present unconventional approaches to intractable problems, involve emerging technologies or tools modified across disciplinary boundaries, or challenge the prevailing paradigm. ‘Transformative’ may mean creation of a new field of research, development of new instrumentation enabling observations not previously possible, or discovery of knowledge that challenges prevailing perspectives (Keck Foundation).”
Dr. Arden Bement conveyed the NSF support of HR/T Research in a speech when he stated, “Supporting transformative research is of critical importance in the fast-paced, science and technology-intensive world or the 21st century (Bement 2007).”
In June, 2009, The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) held a summit entitled Transformative Research Initiative: The Role of Undergraduate Institutions (Karukstis 2009). As part of this summit, Tom Wenzel (Bates College) reiterated the CUR belief that undergraduates benefit by participating in original research, particularly high-quality research characterized by its original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline. The best of such research would be potentially transformative, and all constituents– the institution, the faculty, the students, and society– would benefit from such investigations (Karukstis 2009). Wenzel noted three key factors that likely contributed to a person’s ability to conduct transformative research, including the ability to identify transformative problems or questions and to then generate transformative ideas for solving them; the ability to recognize serendipitous discoveries; and the ability to form collaborations among faculty peers, particularly emphasizing interdisciplinary interactions (Karukstis 2009).
Abraham Loeb also called for young scientists to dedicate more attention to high risk research in 2010 (Loeb 2010). He noted that the tendency to play it safe is driven by peer pressure and job-market prospects and sometimes encouraged by senior researchers. However, he recommended that a research portfolio should contain 50% low risk research, 30% medium risk, and 20% high risk research (Loeb 2010). He also noted that such risky projects bring about isolation. Even after a truth is discovered, the rest of the community often remains silent. This loneliness is in contrast to the nurturing feedback that accompanies work on variations of existing, accepted themes. But in conclusion, he states that even if only one in a million non-mainstream ideas bears fruit, it could transform our view of reality and justify the entire effort. Among the examples of high-risk research that resulted in transformative science are: (1) Einstein’s theories, (2) Watson and Crick’s structure of _-form DNA, and (3) Wegener’s theory of plate tectonics. Recently both the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have initiated “high risk/high reward” research programs (NIH Common Fund).
Art Ellis noted that science is advanced by both positive and negative outcomes and that, while new ideas are crucial, transformative research can also involve recycling as it applies “traditional/old” ideas in an unexpected setting (Karukstis 2009). Furthermore, he articulated two particular challenges that predominantly undergraduate institutions will face in conducting potentially transformative research: acquiring nontraditional sources of funding and rethinking the metrics used to assess the success of research beyond standard counts of publications and grants (Karukstis 2009).
In this paper, we wish to address Ellis’ second challenge faced by primarily undergraduate institutions; that is the “rethinking of the metrics” used to assess HR/T undergraduate research beyond the standard counts of publications and grants. Herein we suggest new metrics for HR/T research that focus on assessment of the research process itself. Primarily undergraduate institutions have the advantage of using these new metrics in the absence of a high demand for publications and external grants but the metrics could be used by research institutions as well.
Discussion
Our approach to new metrics to assess the success of undergraduate students conducting HR/T research is to focus the metrics on the research process instead of the outcomes of the actual research. This approach was used in CHEM385-Research in Chemistry, at Huntingdon College in the Fall of 2015 with the following Student Learning Outcomes:
General Student Learning Outcomes(SLO): After completion of the course, the student will have:
1. Learned to search the chemical literature
2. Learned to take proper safety precautions in laboratory
3. Learned to properly keep a laboratory research notebook
4. Learned how to approach a research problem
5. Learned how to write a research report
6. Learned how to present their research results in an oral presentation
Grades were assigned based on the system in Table 1.
The HR/T research theme was to synthesize ethanol from biomass materials using environmentally benign methods. The six students chose different starting materials such as cotton (cellulose), paper (cellulose), or shrimp shells (chitin) and divided equally into three groups. The students were then introduced to five phases of research upon which they would be assessed:
Phase 1- Literature Search (SLO#1)
Goals: See what’s been done, establish a foundation of knowledge, and generate ideas to direct experimentation
Phase 2- Experimental Plan (SLO#2 and 4)
Goals: Identify experimental variable, identify a “litmus” test, and establish Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis techniques
Phase 3- Experimentation (SLO#3 and 4)
Goals: multiple experimental protocols, quality assurance, detailed documentation in lab notebook
Phase 4- Data Analysis (SLO#4)
Goals: use to concentrate efforts, repeat experiments to improve yields, refine experimental procedures
Phase 5- Presentation of Results (SLO#5 and 6)
Goals: possibly more literature searches and adapting results to presentation media (paper, poster, oral presentation, etc.)
Quantitative Results
After the completion of the two semester research sequence, our overall assessment included:
• All SLO’s were documented as mastered
• Mean of 84.5% of points were awarded on laboratory notebooks
• Mean of 86.0% of points were awarded on written research reports
• Mean of 88.8% of points were awarded on oral presentation
• 4 out of 6 students presented posters at an off-campus venue
• 4 out of 6 students chose to matriculate into CHEM485 and continue their original research.
• One student participated in a summer NSF REU program immediately after the two course sequence.
Students were also asked to participate in the CURE survey which offers a comparison of learning benefits between Course and Undergraduate Research Experiences (CURE). The pre-course survey collects student data based upon demographic questions, reasons for taking the course, level of experience on various course elements, science attitudes, and learning style. The post-course survey parallels the pre-course survey and includes additional questions that focus on student estimates of learning gains in specified course elements, estimates of learning benefits that parallel questions in the SURE surveys, overall evaluation of the experience, and science attitudes (Huntington College 2016).
In the Course Element section, our students scored above the mean in Post Course Gains by an average of 0.34 on a 5 point scale. The five largest differences are shown in Table 2. These data provided external support that several of the SLOs were incorporated and mastered in the class. Results from the Benefits section also supported the SLOs of the class. The learning gain items in this section are the same as a list of gains students assess when they complete the SURE survey, an assessment of summer undergraduate research experiences. According to the score report a consistent result is that CURE means on most items, except for writing and ethics, are lower than SURE means (Huntington College 2016). While we were not given access to the SURE means, our CURE results were greater than the All Students CURE means on all 21 questions in the Benefits section. Overall, our students scored above the mean by an average of 0.41 on a 5 point scale. The three
largest differences are shown in Table 3. In the last section of the CURE survey, Attitudes about Science, our students scored above the mean by an average of 0.13 on a 5 point scale. While this difference is relatively small, it should be noted that several questions were stated in a negative fashion. For example, as seen in Table 4, the largest difference was actually a negative, but given the question is considered a positive result.
Qualitative Results
While the quantitative results are very positive, there are several qualitative results worth mentioning as well. To support the intrinsic motivation aspect of Transformative Research, faculty from other disciplines approached me about the projects because students talked about the projects with enthusiasm in their classes. The buy-in of the students could be illustrated when one student remarked in lab, “I have never really enjoyed labs, but this is so awesome that we are actually performing OUR ideas and OUR experiments”. Comments on student evaluations included, “I had an excellent time in this course. I enjoyed creating my own lab procedures, executing them, and analyzing the results. Dr. Berch was a great advisor to our research and helped guide us through the research process. It was always a good time in lab.” And also, “Awesome class & professor. Loved the opportunity to work in the lab on a potentially world-changing project.” To illustrate the translational nature of learning the research process, the following statement was provided by the student whom completed an NSF REU program immediately following the class:
During my REU program at Kansas, as we looked around and as our advisor noted, there were several skills that we possessed that were superior to my peers and can be directly linked to being developed during the CHEM385/485 sequence of courses. Those skills include: literature searches; making and presenting both PowerPoint and poster presentations; writing scientific papers; development of a research plan; adapting research and a research plan to overcome problems; and working in a group of researchers investigating slightly different projects.
Conclusions
HR/T Research is vital at all levels, but can be especially useful at the undergraduate level for students’ first introduction to research. The excitement inherent to these types of projects was shown to serve as a motivational tool to students that may not be directly interested in or familiar with research. With new metrics focused on the research process rather than the outcomes, students are free to construct their own path, which also seems to be a motivating factor as opposed to simply repeating established protocols. It should also be noted that while emphasis was placed on the process, two of the three groups of students were able to document actual results in the form of partial degradation of the biomass polymer to reducing sugar monomers, and celebrated by presenting their research at a professional conference (Besten et al 2016, Davis et al 2016, Berch et al 2016).
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the students that participated so diligently in the projects and to my colleagues for serving as mentors at Huntingdon College.
References
Bement AL Jr. “Transformative research: The artistry and alchemy of the 21st century,” Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science Fourth Annual Conference, Austin, TX, January 4, 2007
Berch JK, Jackson D, and Murphy MK, “Using ‘high risk’/’transformative’ research projects to introduce undergraduates to the research process,” Annual research symposium program book, Alabama State University, March 16-17, 2016, p. 44
Besten ZD, Manning A, and Berch JK, “Investigating the breakdown of cellulose materials in environmentally benign conditions,” Annual research symposium program book, Alabama State University, March 16-17, 2016, p. 44
Davis C, Manasco R, Pridgen C, Berch JK, “Investigating the breakdown of chitin materials in environmentally benign conditions,” Annual research symposium program book, Alabama State University, March 16-17, 2016, p. 44
Huntingdon College (2016) CURE Report
Loeb A. (2010) The right kind of risk. Nature, 467, 358-358
Karukstis KK (2009) Transformative research initiative: The role of undergraduate institutions. J. Chem. Ed. 86, 1011-1012.
NSF Proposer Survey, Frequency Results to All Survey Items, June 29, 2007.
National Institutes of Health, Office of Strategic Coordination- The Common Fund, High-Risk Research Overview. http://commonfund.nih.gov/highrisk/overview (accessed June 2016)
W.M. Keck Foundation- Science & Engineering and Medical Research Programs–Phase I
Citation:
John K. Berch, Maureen K. Murphy, and Doba D. Jackson (2017) Using High Risk/Transformative Research Projects to Introduce Undergraduates to the Research Process, Frontiers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Volume 1, Issue 1, 10-14
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