Assessment of student learning in undergraduate research engagement

ABSTRACT

Research experiences are prominent in universities’ undergraduate programmes across Australasia and are known to produce a variety of positive outcomes for students, educators, and universities. While there is growing research focused independently on undergraduate research and the role of assessment in higher education, how undergraduate research is assessed is not well understood. This paper reports on a scoping study and illuminates current assessment strategies and best practices in undergraduate research at universities in Australia and New Zealand across 17 disciplines. It offers empirical evidence and reflections based on a mixed-methods study involving 54 survey responses and 4 interviews with academics who engage in best practice. We explore what gets assessed and how, the main purpose of assessment, what drives undergraduate research assessment, and what criteria are used. Contributions and implications for undergraduate research assessment practice are discussed and key principles for design proposed.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• undergraduate research
• Australasia
• higher education
• mixed methods

Introduction

Conducting research forms an increasingly significant component of undergraduate studies. Students consequently benefit from a broad range of developmental skills (Lopatto, 2010b; Meig et al., 2022). Assessment is a crucial part of any higher education experience as it directs student behaviour (Newble & Jaeger, 1983) and reflects the values of the institution (Knight, 2012). Therefore, it is important to understand how assessment designs that are fit-for-purpose can be employed for undergraduate research experiences. It may be that new kinds of assessment that go beyond traditional coursework assessment regimes are necessary. However, it may be that these types of assessments are already in place. It is difficult to make recommendations for change, because it is unclear how undgraduate research is assessed in practice.

This paper aims to scope assessment design practices in undergraduate research experiences within the context, drawing from the experiences of the Australasian undergraduate research community. The remainder of the introduction outlines the background to the empirical study. We describe the broad background of undergraduate research, consider relevant conceptualisations around assessment and assessment design, and review the limited literature concerning assessment in undergraduate research. This provides the key ideas underlying the mixed-method research, which constitutes the remainder of the paper.

Undergraduate research experiences

Research is an increasingly common experience for undergraduates within Australian and New Zealand universities (Brew & Mantai, 2020; Spronken-Smith et al., 2013; Zimbardi & Myatt, 2014). These experiences transcend different programmes, degrees, and academic disciplines and can take in-curricular, co-curricular or extra-curricular forms (Karukstis, 2019). Thus, while traditionally undergraduate research is seen as occurring within an honours programme, and indeed the project that led to this paper was this type of research, recent literature recognises that research occurs in many forms throughout the degree in that it entails ‘detailed study of a subject especially in order to discover (new) information or reach a (new) understanding’ (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.). Note the emphasis here on new; this is not problem-based learning where a problem is solved drawing on current knowledge – we consider research where students themselves contribute to the broader understanding of the world.

Different definitions are used to describe undergraduate research (Beckman & Hensel, 2009; Yorke, 2005). The definition used in this paper is:

[An] inquiry or investigation or a research-based activity conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline and/or to understanding. (Brew & Mantai, 2017, p. 553; following Beckman & Hensel, 2009)

This definition includes various forms of research within which Australasian undergraduates engage. An alternative means to understand undergraduate research is to consider what its constituent parts are. Zimbardi and Myatt (2014) identified five forms of engagement. Apprenticeships describe a student working under the direct supervision of an educator working on an area relating to the educator’s research or experience. Industry projects involve a student focusing on an issue they may be faced with within their profession. Inquiry projects describe students undertaking an entire research process. Methods courses may provide a truncated version of research processes and focus on methodologies used for research within a discipline. Mixed models combine features of the other four models (Zimbardi & Myatt, 2014). Thus, while creating a research output can be the purpose of undergraduate research, students may also complete methods courses as part of their experience, and these processes may be assessed by traditional means.

The utilisation of undergraduate research within Australasian degree programmes is growing (Zou et al., 2022). For the students engaged within research, the benefits identified include increased proficiency within the research skills practiced, such as hypothesis formulation, research methodologies, and critical analysis of data collected (Lopatto, 2010b). Additionally, students report benefits which are transferrable beyond research practices, including: increased self-esteem, academic confidence, overcoming obstacles and navigating ambiguous situations (Lopatto, 2010a). Zou et al. (2022) found that students engaging in undergraduate research value the sense of achievement, ownership, challenge, real-world experience and collaboration, as well as identification with research. Gains for universities resulting from undergraduate research include increased post-graduate research enrolments (Deicke et al., 2014) and employability of graduates (Brew & Saunders, 2020; Willison, 2012). However, while the benefits of undergraduate research are well understood and documented (Healey & Jenkins, 2018; Lopatto, 2010b), there is limited understanding of how such programmes are assessed (Meig et al., 2022; Wilson et al., 2016a).

Assessment of undergraduate research experiences

Assessment of student learning plays a crucial role in higher education and undergraduate research is no different. We define assessment as the act of evaluating student performance as related to a particular task (Boud & Falchikov, 2007). This broad definition includes the many ways judgements and evaluations of student learning and performance are made within the diverse range of learning experiences (Tai et al., 2023). For undergraduates, assessment drives what is learnt and how and when the learning takes place (Taras, 2005). It forces students to make decisions, set learning goals, and formulate plans. Assessment directs student learning, and this applies to learning in undergraduate research.

Traditionally, two main purposes of assessment and their associated models have been articulated. Namely, the promotion of student learning (Houston & Thompson, 2017) through feedback processes and the certification of student learning (Lam, 2015; Tai et al., 2023). To these has more recently been added the assessment for the promotion of student judgements of their own learning (Boud, 2000). However, how these areas play out across undergraduate research is less clear.

Limited research available presents staff or student self-report measures of engaging within research. The focus is often on evaluating the effectiveness or outcomes of undergraduate research programmes and initiatives, less on assessing learning outcomes and outputs of individual student undergraduate research experiences (Auchincloss et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2016a). Isolated examples of literature investigate specific types of assessment used to assess the learning and outcomes in undergraduate research. For example, according to Auchincloss et al. (2014), commonly used types of assessment include student publication, poster presentations, and more recently student reflections on learning. More recent publications highlight the benefit and use of ongoing and guided reflection to assess student development in undergraduate research, such as journaling (Mimbs, 2017) and keeping a reflective diary (Wilson et al., 2016b). Some studies have researched the assessment of learning via undergraduate dissertations (see Annetts et al., 2013; Webster et al., 2000).

While there is little report of what is occurring in practice, the undergraduate research community have some general ideas of what good practices should look like and suggest that they do not align well with traditional assessment types, raising the need to rethink how we assess and grade undergraduate research (Wilson et al., 2016a). However, this is, at present, mostly underpinned by assumptions. There is little information about how or why undergraduate research is assessed, or who conducts the assessment, or what criteria are seen as appropriate or what innovative and exemplary approaches might be. This study addresses this by exploring assessment design as it occurs in practice within the undergraduate research community. The aim is to inform and inspire how undergraduate research programmes design their assessments in the future.

Methodology

To scope the existing assessment practices used in undergraduate research experiences in Australasia we employed a mixed-methods research design consisting of a survey and semi-structured interviews with selected academics leading or supervising undergraduate research programmes. However, while the methods are ‘mixed’, the approach is strongly qualitative: an in-depth exploration of a community. The authors approached this study with a constructionist ontological view of the world. We worked from an interpretivist epistemological position and recognised that the knowledge here was co-constructed by the researchers’ and participants’ individual and shared understandings (Bryman, 2016). As this research was conducted as part of an Honours (final year) research project, the student (second author) and the three supervisors (co-authors) co-explored ideas and co-constructed meaning together.

Survey questions were iteratively developed by consulting existing literature on assessment in higher education and assessment of undergraduate research. This was informed by the dimensions of The Assessment Design Decisions framework, i.e., assessment purpose, assessment context, learner outcomes, tasks, feedback processes, and interactions (Bearman et al., 2016), and by drawing on our own practice and experience. The survey included 18 items: academic discipline and teaching role of the participants, assessment methods and strategies, its links to relevant outcomes (course, programme, graduate), assessment of research processes, and assessment of research artefacts. Where assessment types were listed, we drew on our (the authors’) institutional expertise and the assessment literature we reviewed (e.g., Boud & Falchikov, 2007). The survey used a range of question styles including multi-select (ranging from five to 18 responses), open-ended questions and response scales. It did not force a response to each item.

The survey called for the nomination of programmes identified as outstanding in the provision of undergraduate research. Conversations with nominated programme facilitators via interviews were intended to provide deeper insights into the context of the undergraduate research programmes. The interview schedule was semi-structured and designed to elicit participants’ views on the role of assessment in students’ research and reveal details of their assessment strategies and designs. These interviews explored the role of formative assessment as well as summative assessment.

Survey participants were recruited via the Australasian Council for Undergraduate Research (ACUR) membership email database. The Australasian Council for Undergraduate Research is an independent non-profit association that promotes undergraduate research opportunities across Australia and New Zealand. The member group surveyed consists of university employees who oversee and coordinate undergraduate research programmes, or develop and teach such a programme, or both. As such, the group includes university executive and leadership members as well as academics and teachers. For simplicity we refer to them as educators from hereon. Of the individual educators invited (N = 646), 54 completed the survey, indicating a response rate of 8.4% and covering 17 disciplines. Fifteen respondents indicated they were overseeing the implementation of undergraduate research by others, 11 were directly coordinating it, 14 were teachers or tutors, and 19 were supervising or mentoring an undergraduate researcher at the time of the survey. Respondents were prompted to answer the questions based on the kind of undergraduate research experience they were involved in and submit another form if they wished to report on other programmes or experiences.

At the end of the survey participants were prompted to nominate ‘outstanding’ undergraduate research programmes and provide contact details. We did not provide criteria for outstanding and invited self-nominations. Nine programmes were nominated by survey respondents. All nine were contacted and four educators agreed to or were available for an interview.

Interview transcripts were coded and analysed, using thematic analysis (TA), as is appropriate for use with an interpretivist approach (Braun & Clarke, 2012).

Interview transcripts were reviewed and sections of text relating directly to assessment were identified. An inductive approach was utilised for analysis, drawing from participants’ experiences within undergraduate research. The interview transcripts were initially coded by topics (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Themes were constructed from these codes, with broad topics or issues around clusters of codes. Trustworthiness and reliability of data were ensured by coding consensus between the student researcher and one of the supervisors. These initial themes were reviewed and refined by the team to final themes.

Findings

Survey participants represented a variety of teaching roles in undergraduate research, academic disciplines, and forms of undergraduate research engagement. In relation to timing of undergraduate research, 23 out of 30 respondents stated that undergraduate research occurs in all years of the undergraduate programme and most of it (n = 15) occurs in years 3–4. Only one response stated that undergraduate research occurs in year 1. Using Zimbardi and Myatt’s (2014) forms of undergraduate research engagement, survey participants identified a range of forms: inquiry project (16), apprenticeship (15), industry project (11), research methods (10), mixed methods (8) and two others. Most frequent and popular forms of undergraduate research engagement are the inquiry project (n = 16) and the apprenticeship (n = 15).

The survey identified critical aspects of the nature of assessment practice in undergraduate research:

• the main purpose and scope of assessment of undergraduate research,

• who designs assessment,

• what gets assessed, and

• what assessment criteria are used

While the survey data provided an overall picture and the scope of undergraduate research assessment, particularly what practices occur, the interview data allowed a deeper inquiry into why and how certain practices occur and what criteria are used. The following section describes survey data first and outlines the analysis from the exemplars next.

The scope of undergraduate research assessment in Australia and New Zealand

Purpose of assessment in undergraduate research

Most participants (19 out of 22) who responded to the related question rated promotion of learning (i.e., formative purposes) as very important, while only 7 rated certification of achievement (i.e., summative purpose) as very important. No respondent attributed limited importance to both purposes (Table 1).

Table 1. Participants’ evaluation of importance for purposes of assessment within undergraduate research (N = 22).

	Limited importance	Somewhat important	Important	Very important
Promote learning	0	2	1	19
Certify Achievement	0	5	10	7

Source of assessment design

The survey asked respondents to indicate the source of assessment design, be it a specific role or position or a specific mandate. Unsurprisingly, the responsibility to design assessment lies with academic staff, particularly with the subject coordinator. Examples, however, were provided of students designing assessment independently or with others, and assessment design being directed by programme-level assessment design and universities’ graduate outcomes, see Table 2 for details.

Table 2. Sources of assessment design for undergraduate research engagements (N = 34).

Sources of assessment design	n
Subject Coordinator	12
Inherited from Previous Course Coordinator/Course Committee	6
University Specified Outcomes/Graduate Outcomes	5
Teaching Staff Independently	5
Students and Teaching Staff Together	2
Outside Mentor	1
Student Independently	1
Programme Level Assessment Design	1
Programme not assessed	1

What gets assessed in undergraduate research

Students were expected to complete a variety of mandatory research artefacts but not all were marked. Of all artefacts completed by students, only two thirds of these were marked or graded (reported in Table 4). The top three artefacts graded were: Spoken Presentation in Class (n = 24), Poster Presentation in Class (n = 21), and Student Writing (Essay/Report) (n = 19). It is noteworthy that most artefacts completed are what could be considered showcase material: e.g., poster and portfolio, written artefacts (essay, report, thesis, reflection) and oral presentations. They present final outcomes, in other words ‘polished’ research work, and are the ones included in the marking. Interestingly, in 10 cases an examination was used to mark undergraduate research. On average, students completed approximately five assessments and were graded on approximately three assessments per research engagement, see Table 3 for more details.

Table 3. Artefacts completed and marked in undergraduate research engagements (N = 49).

Research artefact	Completed by students (n)	Marked or graded (n)
Spoken Presentation in Class	28	24
Student Publication (Dissertation/Thesis)	25	17
Student Writing (Essay/Report)	25	19
Spoken Presentation in Public Forum	22	15
Other	22	18
Poster Presentation (in class)	21	21
Publication in Scholarly Journal	20	1
Poster Presentation (public forum)	19	10
Reflective Statements	17	8
Research Journal/Logbook	15	7
Reflective Portfolio	14	10
Professional Learning Work	13	0
Work-Integrated Learning Outputs	12	11
Examination	10	10
Extended written response	9	9
Record of Supervision Meetings	7	0
Short Answer Assessments	6	6
Quiz	0	5
Total	285	191

The artefact results in Table 4 were echoed by the process-focused assessment. Of research processes completed by students, 63% were marked or graded. While the final output or the product (some type of presentation or publication) appears dominant in Table 4, we see a strong assessment focus on the process. This is well distributed across the various stages of the research process, applying for Ethics approval, reviewing the literature, collecting, and analysing data, see Table 4.

Table 4. Processes completed and marked in undergraduate research engagements (N = 49).

Research process	Completed by students (n)	Marked or graded (n)
Presentation and/or publication of outcomes	56	40
Data collection	55	27
Data analysis	55	34
Literature review	53	35
Research proposal	48	34
Application for ethics	31	6
Other	13	19
Total	311	195

Assessment criteria

Respondents reported that the types of assessment criteria used for marking undergraduate research assessments overall related to the main output of the research undertaken (e.g., final report or presentation). Often, each marking criterion reflected a particular stage of the research or inquiry process, e.g., methodology, literature review, data analysis. Main assessment criteria related to a written presentation of the output (like a research report, thesis, or paper) and included criteria such as cohesion and structure of presentation, clarity of argument, depth of analysis and reflection, choice and justification of methodology, review and grasp of literature, referencing, delivery and presentation, as well as new contribution or advanced understanding of the topic.

Exemplary practice in undergraduate research in Australia and New Zealand

Four educators identified as examples of best practice in undergraduate research were interviewed about their assessment designs. Interviewees provided a detailed account of how the undergraduate research programme is structured and their role in it. Interviewees confirmed the earlier reported benefits that undergraduate research programmes provide to students, themselves as supervisors, and to institutions. Contextual details of each programme are presented below.

Table

Programme 1 – University Psychology Honours Programme and Research Laboratory
The school of health, medical and applied sciences offers experiences within a research laboratory exploring the motivation behind people’s health behaviours in addition to coursework. Further, the study of psychology (Honours year) includes students engaging in undergraduate research, producing a major assessment piece, centred around the production of a written piece, based on the format of a journal article. This project is completed over the course of a year and is centred on a student-nominated topic.
Programme 2 – University Science Research Programme
This undergraduate research programme links interested science students with faculty members to engage within research projects. Research projects can be student initiated, staff initiated or a combination of these. The research programme is in addition to studies completed within the students’ coursework. There are no summative assessments, rather assessment is scaffolded to the needs of each undergraduate as they undertake practical research within the sciences.
Programme 3 – University Psychology Honours Programme
The Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) includes a major empirical report, representing 60% of the year’s award. This is complemented by coursework which explores research design and methods. Students work with a mentor/supervisor to produce a 40-page report on a topic of their choosing, negotiated with their supervisor. The project takes place over an academic year.
Programme 4 – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Programme
This Programme is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university students. It seeks to increase the aspiration of first nations students’ scholarship within the sciences. The programme provides training in research skills, ongoing cultural support, and the opportunities to contribute to a research symposium. Working with a supervisor, students conduct a research project of their choosing and generate a poster and spoken presentation to share their findings.

Our analysis interpreted four themes: (1) rich assessment interactions (2) multiple sources at multiple times (3) navigating tensions and (4) summative assessment considerations. We elaborate on each theme below and provide illustrative quotes from the interviewees.

(1)	Rich Assessment Interactions

In the exemplar programmes, many dialogic supervisor-student interactions throughout the research process supported student development through assessment. Supervisors invested in the formative and summative assessment processes, sharing their expertise and experience, and scaffolding students’ development. They try to foster students’ increasing independence and reflective capabilities: ‘I think the supervisor in those cases just acts as a guide, going along the journey with [the undergraduate].’ (P4) and ‘We want to give them the resources but not lead them directly to it’ (P2). Supervisors provide inspiration and motivation and are invested in getting the best out of the student. For example, in P3 the supervisor recalled: ‘‘writing a computer programme to actually run the experiment, you’ll get a lot of formative assessment on that. They’ll create it they’ll send it to me I’ll pretend to be a participant and just … do everything wrong. And I see if I can break it, and usually I can break it and I’ll say to them ‘look, you're going to test them on people and they are not going to read the instructions, they going to do it all wrong here's the problem you what you need to do is you need to change this.’ They further noted: ‘I remind students that although you might not realise it, failure is a huge part of research. You do things wrong again and again until you produce a version which is really high quality.’ (P3) Rich conversations and interactions are necessary, especially at the start of the research learning journey until the student becomes confident and proficient, as P2 interviewee noted:

They're heavily supervised and you're not going to put them in the middle of the CBD, you know, reverse parking unless you’re really sure that they're up to it. It's a practical science and … for that reason, I think it's heavily regulated, and I think the freedom in the sort of workflow is something that develops over time. (P2)

(2)	Multiple Sources at Multiple Times

As formative assessment is integrated throughout, there are multiple sources of feedback information, received at multiple timepoints. This supports undergraduates’ researcher development, independent and critical thinking, etc. Continuous dialogue between student and supervisors, as well as regular opportunities to connect and converse with peers and other research staff on research progress appeared to be a key feature of a successful undergraduate research programme. For example, interviewees commented on the value of peer feedback, self-reflection and feedback received during the ethics review. ‘The ethics application process [is] a really good example of formative assessment and it's feedback from people other than your supervisor. That's certainly something all of our students go through’ (P3) and ‘Two thesis examiners will write approximately a page of feedback on what was good and bad … and that's given back to the students. So that … they know what to improve the next time’ (P3). Importantly, feedback is presented as ‘feedforward’ or as actions for improvement. Example quotes include: ‘We give thorough feedback, and our mentality is that it's an iterative document throughout the Honours; it's not separate assignments because that's not how science is’ (P1); ‘I think that it's good to have those touch points throughout the programme. It's not just having a project, letting them go, and then coming back at the end and saying, “what have you done?”’ (P4).

(3)	Navigating Tensions

Outstanding programmes and their teachers navigate the constraints and tensions at each level of assessment from macro-level to student-level, creating solutions to provide authentic research experiences within the programme and beyond. As P1 interviewee noted: ‘We're trying to break down the notion that there's undergraduates and then there's researchers, undergraduates are doing all the same stuff that academics are so why wouldn’t you get credit and be held to the same standards?’ Undergraduate research goes beyond box-ticking as the interviewees’ responses demonstrate a great amount of good will show by undergraduate research coordinators and supervisors, to afford students with authentic assessment and real-life academic experiences. However, the interviewees note the limitations placed on good will owing to institutional requirements, as they comment on institutional expectations and prescribed standardised assessment procedures they need to follow. The emphasis and care placed on supporting the students’ individual development needs was notable: ‘That was a strong focus for the program … everything that we've added has been focused on what the students needed rather than what the institution wanted’ (P4).

(4)	Summative Assessment

Where the research engagement is subject to marked coursework assessment, coordinators carefully consider summative assessment throughout the research experience. It can be a major component of a degree, and thus, as such high stakes are involved, moderation is often employed. The summative assessments seek to provide opportunities to excel and may complement coursework assessment, as P1 stated:

To reach a higher level in terms of the marking and degrees, at the end, grading, it's a lot of self-evaluation and willingness to take on board feedback, or to push yourself, so we give them the opportunity and it's much more about the students to be able to action that or not.

Finally, participants noted constraints of selection criteria based on grades from previous assessment, which may exclude some learners. As one participant noted: ‘I think that the traditional requirements for undergrad research are very limited and exclusionary because a lot of the programs [that] focus on high achieving only, which are going to go on to do Honours and PhDs anyway’ (P4). The P2 interviewee added ‘In undergraduate curricula, we’re preoccupied with assessing student competency rather than developing it’.

Discussion

Undergraduate students tend to be subject to more summative than formative assessment (Winstone & Boud, 2022), and our data indicates this might be true for undergraduate research, too. The assessment criteria, however, clearly relate to the formative stages of the research process and for students to address them adequately, they must genuinely engage in each step of the development and inquiry process. Such stages take up most effort and time to complete. As noted by the interviewees, such criteria include applying for ethics committee approval, reviewing the literature, collecting, and analysing data. Assessment criteria submitted by our survey participants supported Wilson et al.’s (2016a) findings, in that they lacked criteria around reflection on the research process and experience itself. The criteria tend to focus on tangible research outputs. Yet, our interviewees emphasised the act of reflecting, learning from failure, and trying again to be critical elements in the researcher development. Such learning experiences were shown to be transformative for undergraduate research students (Crowe & Brakke, 2020; Lopatto, 2010a; Wilson et al., 2016a).

Our findings reveal that conventional assessment regimes, for example essays, tests, and examinations, are applied to undergraduate research to conform to institutional assessment guidelines or address regulatory standards and expectations. Some assessment mechanisms reflect postgraduate research practice as educators rely on their subjective experiences of research-based learning (Brew, 2012; Brew & Saunders, 2020). While the undergraduate research process is dominated by formative assessment, it is usually the final research report, thesis or/and presentation that is assessed summatively. Assessments thus assist the student to engage systematically within the research process, whilst balancing the institutional need for assessment efficiency. Our data indicates that traditional and summative assessment can be inadequate to assess the development and learning achieved through undergraduate research, an observation echoed in earlier research (Annets et al., 2013; Engström, 2015; Webster et al., 2000). We also see an obvious discrepancy between what gets completed by students and what is graded (only 67% of all artefacts produced).

Interviewees from exemplar programmes note that summative assessments are typically submitted at the conclusion of a teaching period, but extensive feedback is provided throughout the research engagement. There is a substantial investment of time that interviewees state they contribute to undergraduate research on their own accord. This reflects the value undergraduate research facilitators place on developing the student’s research competencies and the learning process rather than measuring the final output, often in good will and in tension with institutional expectations. It also reflects the focus on learning in the research process revealed in survey responses, which aligns with the main purpose of promoting rather than certifying learning as stated by participants. Similar findings were made in previous research (Brew & Mantai, 2017; Lopatto, 2010a; Wilson et al., 2016a).

We note the dominating traditional approach of staff designing assessment vs students designing assessment. There is potential to open undergraduate research to co-design practices and follow the lead of initiatives like students-as-partners, students-as-producers and, in fact, in the words of P1 coordinator, ‘break down the notion that there are undergraduates and there are researchers’ and instead consider students as co-researchers. Some examples of co-design were mentioned in the survey where students nominate and scope their own topics, but more student input can be in-designed into research programmes. While student agency and student partnerships are increasing in other areas of learning and teaching (see Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017), our study suggests that this engagement strategy seems underutilised in undergraduate research and assessment, respectively. Our interviewees, however, push the boundaries in this regard by providing students with opportunities to peer-review other research and contribute to research communities beyond their undergraduate research projects. Undergraduate research coordinators in our study clearly grasp the importance of relationships and naturally model academic communities of practice as a successful pedagogical approach in socialising undergraduate researchers (Brew, 2012; Crossman, 2007).

Overall, we see a positive and encouraging picture in the way undergraduate research assessment practice is approached. Undergraduate research coordinators and supervisors express a genuine desire to promote the development of early researchers, their research skills, and to provide an authentic research experience – all commonly expressed learning goals of undergraduate research (Wilson et al., 2016a). To achieve these goals, our research participants from exemplar programmes identify core assessment activities to be investment in dialogue and feedback throughout the whole research programme, the integration of students in peer research communities, and the development of students’ independent thinking and self-reflection skills for ongoing research work (Brew, 2012; Crossman, 2007).

The central theme in our findings is that undergraduate research coordinators prioritise and make space for formative assessment and feedback opportunities to focus on the student’s development as a researcher. They indicate that the value of students engaging with the assessment demands of undergraduate research might be realised upon re-engagement with research at later time points, building on learning from each prior iteration through undergraduate to postgraduate research (Boud, 2000). These rich learning opportunities, occurring within meaningful assessment interactions, provide the ideal breeding ground for ongoing development beneficial to students’ professional and personal lives (Lopatto, 2010a).

Undergraduate research convenors believe in the value and potential of undergraduate research to students themselves and work hard to create space and time to prioritise formative learning opportunities, relationship-building, and providing ongoing feedback. While this is great news, support is needed to sustain such engagement. Drawing on Bearman et al.’s (2016) six considerations for assessment design, we propose the following recommendations for undergraduate research coordinators and institutions:

• Purpose of undergraduate research assessment: Situate undergraduate research within the framework of assessment for learning due to its strong focus on feedback that drives development. Design undergraduate research assessment to develop students as researchers and realise benefits associated with undergraduate research (as explained in the introduction) (e.g., by integrating students in research communities).

• Context of assessment: Arrange that supervision arrangements can afford the types of rich assessment interactions that build researcher development. Consider the broader context of study to develop a rich peer and collegial environment that can support students as part of their research community.

• Learner outcomes: Consider individual students’ professional ambitions and personal characteristics to promote intellectual growth and professional development, as well as the capacity to make judgements about their own research work.

• Tasks: Align undergraduate research assessment with department and disciplinary expectations as well as programme learning outcomes and activities (e.g., by mapping out how activities and assessment clearly align with which outcomes). To meet individual student outcomes, offer personal choice in assessment form and format, or by including students in assessment design.

• Feedback processes: Design feedback loops and feedforward into assessment regimes (e.g., by prompting students to actively incorporate feedback in future tasks).

• Interactions: Communicate how each task and activity relates to graded assessment, learning outcomes and student development (e.g., by visualising how an activity promotes critical thinking, or by utilising reflection-based (guided or structured) assessment forms to surface learning gains). Integrate students in the assessment evaluation to inform future improvement (e.g., by surveying students what worked, what didn’t, what was relevant/irrelevant to them).

Strengths and limitations of the current study

This is a scoping study, designed to provide an introductory illustration of assessment techniques utilised in Australasian universities to assess student learning within undergraduate research. It seeks to start a conversation on this under-researched field, providing foundations for future research, and many of the limitations associated with this study are also therefore necessary constraints. We purposively targeted interested parties. The participant sample is small but drawn from members of the Australasian Council of Undergraduate Research with expertise and practice experience in undergraduate research. We focused on a small number of exemplary programmes, seeking what is perceived as good practice rather than what is more generally done. As with any mixed method study, we chose to report with breadth rather than depth: again, this suits our aim of an exploratory, scoping study.

Future research directions

This study has identified future research directions which may further enlighten assessment practices in undergraduate research. An underlying theme emerging from this research, was the desire to provide authentic research learning experiences, with associated benefits extending beyond the duration of the assessment activity itself. This positions sustainable assessment (Boud, 2000) as a sound lens through which to further explore assessment practices within undergraduate research. Future research could engage in a more detailed investigation of assessments used across different forms of research engagement to provide a more nuanced view. We present key principles to provide guidance and inform programme and assessment design within undergraduate research.

Conclusion

This study aimed to scope existing and exemplary assessment practices used with undergraduate research in Australasian universities. Survey data showed that undergraduate research is currently assessed at multiple time-points throughout degree programmes using a variety of mechanisms. These mechanisms reflect conventional assessment procedures familiar from non-research coursework or borrow from postgraduate research practice that do not adequately support nor make visible the learning and development of the undergraduate research student. The undergraduate research convenors interviewed for this study, revealed a significant amount of energy and good will invested to realise the learning outcomes of undergraduate research though provision of ongoing formative feedback and supporting the learning process more than focusing on research output. By doing so, they constantly negotiate between institutional expectations, and the needs of undergraduate research and their students. The study implications call for a rethink to implement more fit-for-purpose assessment mechanisms for undergraduate research and present key principles to provide guidance.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on Christopher Swain’s honours thesis for the Bachelor of Psychological Sciences. We also want to acknowledge and thank the Australasian Council for Undergraduate Research (ACUR) for their support in disseminating the survey to their networks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).