(229c) Research Symposium for Engaging Students in Undergraduate Research

Research is always in the need of innovative and fresh ideas; that is why the engagement of students early during their formation is an effective way of instilling in them skills and structured thinking that can be helpful not only for the researchers but for their formation. Undergraduate research has been shown to have strong benefits in terms of how the students develop in the professional fields and how these experiences affect the matriculation in PhD programs [1-4].

Students generally have access to formal research experience during their undergraduate formation by collaborating with professors in their laboratories during their spare time or in summer programs, and in most of the times, the first approach is always time demanding not only for the students but for the different elements of the research group (graduate students, postdoctoral associates, research associates and even professors). In our experience, we have detected three main deficiencies when new undergraduate students collaborate with the research groups:

1. The ability to search, sieve, understand and structure information from peer reviewed journals or other sources of information.
2. Express and defend their ideas in a structured way with scientific fundaments.
3. Structure a valid methodology to begin performing theoretical or experimental activities.

For that reason, we decided to implement different activities that will help solve those deficiencies during the student formation before they get involved with a research group. Our goal was to reach students during the first half of their formation. Two strategies were followed: the development of projects during Integration Laboratories and the participation in a Research Symposium. The first strategy has been applied during the last two years and still we are analyzing the results of the improvement of the projects. The second strategy has been applied for 6 consecutive annual editions and we have observed improvement in the participation of students in research since the first edition.

The Symposium is named “Symposium on Surface Chemistry, Colloids and Materials”. The event is organized for students in the first semester of the third year as part of the graded activities of their course in Surface Phenomena. We decided it would be the best course due to the diversity of the field, and that students already have acquired knowledge in organic, inorganic, analytical chemistry and unit processes.

The Symposium organization takes place along the course with different deliverable and graded activities:

1. Month 1: Selection of an article of interest in databases. One session is dedicated to explaining how to access the journal databases, types of publications, contents of an article. The session is given with the help of the library and database managers. Students must select one article of their interest, in line with the topics of the course and no older than 5 years. The teacher validates the selection and gives recommendations in terms of difficulty of understanding.
2. Month 2: Generation of an abstract of the article. The library personnel are responsible of providing the full articles to the students, which they must read, analyze and generate a new abstract with their own words. In this stage, the teacher is responsible of guiding the understanding of the article, revising the redaction and not avoiding lack of any kind of reference including the article itself. With this material, the teacher generates the program and first memories of the Symposium.
3. Month 3-4: Preparation of the presentations. During this stage, the students prepare their presentations either in oral or poster format depending on an aleatory distribution of the works. The students receive a guideline in terms of the format and length of the presentations. Training sessions are also organized to prepare students for the final presentation.
4. Symposium Day During last month: The format of the symposium has evolved along the years; however, the main intention is the same. There is an open invitation to the symposium, thus authorities, teachers, professors, fellow students and family assist. The students present and defend the work in the selected article either in oral or poster format.

The activity has caused different reactions along the years: During the first session, only students assisted, they presented either in English or their native language (Spanish) so they could feel more comfortable during the session. In the following editions, the official language became the English and family and fellow students began to get interested in the event. During the last two editions, fellow professors and graduate students from different institutions agreed to assist the symposium and grade students, in some cases even webcast was used to communicate with professors in institutions as Stanford University and University of British Columbia. For the following session, the Symposium is meant to have invited talks and presentation of the work done at the research groups of the University.

In terms of quantitative evaluation of the symposium, the number of students participating with the “Process Engineering and New Materials Research Group” of the Chemical Engineering major at La Salle University Mexico has increased notoriously becoming the second research group with more student participation in the whole University. Students also comment that the experience was interesting in terms of trying to understand specialized information, presenting and defending their work in a non-native language. The event has become part of the signature activities of the Chemistry Sciences School and has gained recognition from the dean of the University.

The Research Symposium has been a success in terms of formation of students. Not all students will focus on research, however, the experience gives them formation in structuring ideas, manipulating information and expressing ideas that will be useful in any professional activity they develop.

[1] Russell, S.H.; Hancock, M.P.; McCullough Science Education Forum, 2007, 316, 548-549 “Benefits of undergraduate research experiences”

[2] Dea, P.K. J. Chem. Ed. 2000, 77(4), 432 “CUR 2000: The many facets of undergraduate research”

[3] Mabrouk, P.A. J. Chem. Ed. 2009, 86(11), 1335-1340 “Survey study investigating the significance of conference participation to undergraduate research students”

[4] Mohrig, J.R.; Wubbels, G.G. J. Chem. Ed. 1984, 61(6), 507-508 “Undergraduate research as chemical education”