High impact: Examining predictors of faculty-undergraduate coauthored publication and presentation in psychology

Abstract

Despite the increasing popularity of faculty-undergraduate research, a dearth of research has investigated factors that predict the professional outcomes of these collaborations. We sought to address this gap by examining a wide range of institutional (e.g., institution type, selectivity, course load) and faculty variables (e.g., rank, years of experience, enjoyment of mentoring) potentially related to coauthored undergraduate publication and conference presentation in psychology. Negative binomial regressions were used to analyze online survey data from 244 faculty members from both graduate-serving institutions (i.e., doctoral, master’s) and primarily undergraduate institutions. The results showed that, after controlling for overall research productivity, faculty at primarily undergraduate institutions were more likely to publish journal articles with undergraduates, whereas faculty at graduate-serving institutions were more likely to coauthor conference presentations with undergraduates. Institutions with higher selectivity, more support for faculty-undergraduate research, and lower course loads produced higher numbers of undergraduate publications. Faculty characteristics were even more strongly related to undergraduate research outcomes. Specifically, publication was most likely with faculty who are of higher rank, have more years of experience, spend more time on research, foster close collaborative relationships with undergraduates, and/or perceive their students as high quality and well trained. By contrast, conference presentation was most likely with faculty who work with more undergraduate students on more projects per year and/or who enjoying mentoring undergraduates. Our findings suggest ways that institutions can facilitate undergraduate publication, which we argue is an increasingly common and achievable outcome.