A Study on Undergraduate Engineering Research

This research-to-practice category full paper describes the benefits of undergraduate research and through online research demonstrates the methods used by the higher education institutions to introduce their students to research. We conducted at the home institution a survey of students not previously involved in research and found that most engineering students (88%) are interested in undertaking research. 83% of students would like to engage in both laboratory and computational work for their research. The research topics of most interest to students in descending order are sustainability aerospace applications, energy, materials, infrastructure, and robotics. Students believe that the most significant benefit from research is developing skills other than those taught in their classes (i.e., creativity, diligence) and that the major barrier to not performing research is either not having time or not knowing how to start. Students would be mostly interested in research if the research project is of interest to them and they are less eager to publish and present their research results at engineering conferences and other venues. 61% of students wish to collaborate with other students on research projects under the guidance of a faculty member. To increase the first-year students' interest in research and develop an entrepreneurial mindset, the paper presents a project that can be incorporated in the Introduction to Engineering course. First-year students are asked to develop and answer their own research questions and learn how to pursue patents for their discoveries. Such projects can help students understand what research is and make them start working on faculty mentored research projects as soon as their first year.