Mentorship and Legitimate Peripheral Participation in the Research Laboratory

This research-to-practice paper investigates how undergraduates organically transition into researchers through the lens of Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Legitimate Peripheral Participation is a contextual learning phenomenon through which new members become core members of a community. These peripheral members begin with the execution of peripheral low-risk and simple activities, gradually accruing knowledge and experience as they take on more complex and essential activities. They gain legitimacy and access to more complex involvement through interaction with, and mentorship by, senior members of the community. Our research examines how seven undergraduate students, who are involved with a research lab, transition from peripheral roles to core membership through observation and peripheral engagement, skill development, community integration, increasing responsibility, and collaborative projects. These undergraduates interact with and are mentored by both graduate students and faculty members in an organic fashion, with no assigned mentorship roles existing between the undergraduate students and graduate students or faculty. The focus of our research is not on how one recruits undergraduates to work in a research lab, but on how the identity of an undergraduate as a researcher, both in their own mind and in those of their coworkers, is nurtured and developed. Through the process of surveys and interviews we extract the core elements of the undergraduates' experience and explore factors that might contribute to or hinder their transition into being more active researchers. The degree of involvement and identification as a researcher varied significantly between the undergraduate students. The key elements we discover at social engagement, physical presence, and near-peer interaction.