Increasing Accessibility to Undergraduate Research: A Semester-Long, Course-Based Research Model to Enhance the Engineering Classroom

This innovative practice paper explores how undergraduate research experiences can play a formative role in a student's educational development and long-term career aspirations. The research process in its entirety, from literature review to publication and presentation, offers students the opportunity to build confidence in a subject and communicate their findings. Each step of the process offers valuable skills — such as hypothesis formulation, data collection and analysis, technical writing, and oral presentations — that are transferable regardless of their post-graduate plans, whether that be attending graduate school or joining the workforce. However, engaging in research is not always accessible to undergraduate students. Currently, the process requires a student to initiate a conversation with a faculty member regarding potential positions in their lab, and if hired, take on tasks that might focus strictly on executing a single aspect of the research methodology, as opposed to experiencing the research process in entirety. The introduction and incorporation of research opportunities into undergraduate courses allows students to explore engineering through an interdisciplinary lens, as opposed to a lecture-based class, which might focus strictly on technical theory. In this work, we present a structure for a semester-long, course-based research project that was piloted across two semesters for two distinct engineering courses. The structure of the proposed classroom model is equal parts theory, research, and communication. The first third takes the form of a traditional course introducing engineering concepts. The technical skills developed here supplement the rest of the coursework, giving students the relevant background needed to make meaningful and informed decisions in their problem sets and research. The second third is dedicated to introducing the research process and applying that process to a general set of research questions. In the first pilot course, Introduction to Analog and Digital Communications, 23 students were broken into teams of two to three students, with each team exploring the coexistence of two spectrum stakeholders, e.g., 5G terrestrial users and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) radar altimeters or radioastronomy (RAS) and large low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations. The research and communication components focus on developing undergraduate students' skills synthesizing technical findings, assessing stakeholder pain points, and framing of solutions in an actionable manner. This work discusses the semester-long structure and provides a class-by-class breakdown of the content, assessment, and learning outcomes. Additionally, it summarizes the learnings of the course pilots and offers recommendations for engaging with and applying this course model at other institutions and across disciplines including at the first-year or capstone level.