Fall 1991

Turning Students Into Scholars:
An Undergraduate Research Experience
Michael E. Gorman, Division of Humanities, School of Engineering and Applied Science

My colleague W. Bernard Carlson and I have worked for the past three years with a group of undergraduates who collaborate with us on our research. Bernie is a historian of technology; I am a psychologist. In cooperation with students, we are developing a systematic method for mapping the invention process.

Currently, we are focusing on the invention of the telephone. The students scan sketches done by three competing inventors--Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Elisha Gray--into a Macintosh. The task is technically demanding: students have to master computer software and also understand the working of the devices portrayed in each sketch. Then the fun really begins: the students begin constructing multi-level branching tree diagrams that reflect their best sense of the inventor's thinking process at that particular stage. In weekly meetings, we compare different sections of each inventor's tree diagrams and have freewheeling debates about anything from how to interpret a particular sketch to how to improve our methodology.

The team includes students from several fields of engineering as well as students from psychology, biology and the Commerce School. This experience teaches students the value of stretching beyond disciplinary values. It also transforms the student-teacher relationship into a colleague-colleague relationship, especially among those students who stay with us for several years. These "veterans" also become co-authors on articles, and are given opportunities to present their work at professional meetings.

Most of the students work for independent-study credit of various sorts, though I offer one course--H313, Scientific and Technological Thinking--that most team members take at one time or another. We have been able to employ one student
over the summer to continue the work, and we hope to obtain outside funding to offer more experiences of this sort.

Overall, we think this experience demonstrates that students can be creators as well as consumers of knowledge, and that they can learn the value of scholarship by working in close collaboration with faculty on their research. This is one way of transcending the false dichotomy between teaching and research.