Cyclopropane can be hydrogenated to produce propane under moderately high temperatures ([tilde]175 [degrees]C). Using a nanoparticle palladium catalyst, undergraduate students can explore the reaction and draw conclusions regarding the conditions for reaction. When deuterium is used, conclusions pertaining to the reaction mechanism are possible.…

A multistep synthesis of a metal-free organic dye-sensitizer for solar cells was developed as a multifaceted research project for upper-division undergraduate students with a goal of introducing students to the application of organic synthesis in material science, and renewable energy research. The characterization of the dye is done by thin-layer…

Research in visual arts, according to Winters (2015), is an unusual situation in that artists must offer details about how their artistic process represents a methodology, what its research methods are, and why this is an appropriate, reliable, and valid procedure. In this reflective article the authors chronicle working together from fall 2017…

Institutions of higher education have increasingly motivated faculty to involve undergraduates in their research. These can be excellent opportunities for education researchers interested in working with pre-service teacher candidates (PSTCs). This article demonstrates the necessary conditions required for successful research experiences and…

Our purpose in writing this scholarly personal narrative is to share our perspectives and experiences as graduate student researcher and supervisor/principal investigator implementing and studying teaching and learning reform in the laboratory component of an undergraduate exercise physiology course. We reflect on our grappling with experiential…

Immediately after its appearance, we at the University of Amsterdam's Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies enthusiastically adopted Allen Repko's "Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory" (Repko, 2008) as it was the first textbook that offered systematic explanation of and guidance through the complexities of an…

Undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory courses act as a baseline for introductory scientific experimentation. These courses provide students with the knowledge and skills for their future careers. The traditional lab is conducted by providing a structured protocol of the experiment for the students to follow and reproduce the assigned task…

Introduction: Undergraduate research experiences prepare students for graduate training or employment. Statement of problem: At many teaching-intensive universities, there is a greater demand for research experiences than there are independent study opportunities. Students from typically underrepresented backgrounds may also be unaware of a…

In higher education, online students are often precluded from research assistantships that are more accessible for campus-based students. At a highly ranked institution for online learning, we developed the Undergraduate Research Program (URP) to address this gap in opportunities for online students. The URP is designed to engage fully distanced…

The call to increase student participation in high-impact practices (HIPs) to improve student learning, satisfaction, and retention is being answered in a multitude of ways. Faculty and staff involved in undergraduate research see this as validation of their efforts, which it is. However, Kuh & O'Donnell's (2013) work challenges research…

This chapter recounts the story of how I came to design a Research Apprenticeship Course at UCLA--what we call the RAC. I lay out the origin story of the RAC dating back to early collaborations with Arturo Madrid of the Tomas Rivera Policy Research Center and the Ford Foundation Family of Fellows in the mid to late 1980s. These collaborations…

Community-Based Research (CBR) presents a wide range of benefits in higher education to students, community partners, and universities. Yet on our campus (and many others), CBR remains less common than other high-impact practices (HIPs) such as service learning and undergraduate research due to lack of effective institutionalization. Moreover,…

This article offers two novel tools for teaching political science methodology and research design. The first is a comprehensive framework for helping students conceptualize a research project in political science. The second is a reformulation of the dominant conceptualization of process-tracing tests. Building on Collier's use of Sherlock Holmes…

We advocate for greater emphasis in training students about data management, within the context of supporting experience in reproducible workflows. We introduce the "L"ancaster "U"niversity "ST"atistics "RE"sources (LUSTRE) package, used to manage student research project data in psychology and build…

I teach an animal behavior course where students conduct independent research projects; however, using live animals for research is challenging at a small university. Often, students choose to conduct a laboratory project over a field project believing that it will be easier to observe animals and control variables, but it can be difficult and…