The Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference: A Pathway to Publishing?

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Christopher Kent¹  Peter J. Allen¹  Sam Harding²  Jessica L. Fielding¹ 

[1] School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, United Kingdom;Bristol Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit, United Kingdom

关键词: conference;    undergraduate;    publishing;    engagement;    authorship;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00491

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The benefits associated with regularly engaging undergraduate psychology students in authenticresearch are widely recognized (Miller et al., 2008) and reflected in the learning goals and graduateattributes/requirements specified by psychology course accreditors worldwide. For example, UKaccreditation standards (British Psychological Society, 2017, p. 12) state that students shouldgraduate from an undergraduate psychology course able to demonstrate a range of research skills,and that such skills are best developed via engagement in a diversity of empirical experiences acrossthe duration of the course. In the UK, the last and largest of these experiences is the undergraduatedissertation or research thesis project (Brewer et al., 2012). Accreditation is similar in the US(American Psychological Association., 2016) where psychology majors will have designed andconducted multiple research studies prior to graduation (Perlman and McCann, 2005; Stoloff et al.,2015). Although less ubiquitous in the US than in the UK, capstone research projects are growingin popularity, particularly in liberal arts colleges (Schermer and Gray, 2012; Chew, 2015).Substantial infrastructure exists to support the supervision and conduct of undergraduateresearch. Considerably fewer resources are invested in its dissemination. Thus, for most students,submission of the project report or dissertation, which is intended for consumption by just oneor two assessors, is the final stage of the research process (Garde-Hansen and Calvert, 2007).As noted by Kneale et al. (2016, p. 160), “although involvement in research is recognized asoffering transformational experiences for undergraduates. . . the dissemination phase is generallyunderplayed.” In this paper we discuss the role that undergraduate research conferences canplay in the dissemination of undergraduate research generally, as well as the specific role theycan play in stimulating student-staff collaboration on publications developed from undergraduateresearch projects.

【 授权许可】

CC BY