Empowering and Motivating Undergraduate Students Through the Process of Developing Publishable Research

Mentoring undergraduates in research is a truly rewarding endeavor. There are immense benefits for both students and faculty mentors who engage in high-quality undergraduate research mentorship (Bowman and Stage, 2002; Osborn and Karukstis, 2009). For students, the experience allows them to expand their skills and knowledge, increase self-efficacy and self-confidence, increase learning gains, and connect classroom learning to real-world settings (Palmer et al., 2015). Becoming part of a research lab can inspire future graduate studies or job paths in a certain field, and provide a competitive edge over peers (Shellito et al., 2001; Davis and Jones, 2017). For faculty, mentorship can promote the transfer of academic “DNA” and generate meaningful scholarship (Lancy, 2003). The focus of this paper is to discuss principles that I have found effective in guiding undergraduates to produce publishable research. These principles are largely informed by learner-centered practices (Cornelius-White, 2007) including rapport building, facilitating motivation, empowering students by honoring their ideas and opinions, encouraging problem solving, scaffolding, and internal and external self-reflection.