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CHRIS LITTLE
place. Once it was explained to students that neither of these was a
possibility due to a conflict of interests for myself as the organiser,
and researcher in this case, they understood and used the expected
means. Additionally, students could not see why their abstracts
needed to be so concise (100 words in this case) or why they should
submit in February for a conference in June. These are familiar
processes to staff who frequently attend conference and were
designed to give students the somewhat frustrating experiences
that some staff members have when submitting for consideration
at conferences.
It may be worth considering the mentoring which undergraduate
students, particularly those new to higher education, may require.
Future incarnations of this conference may look to implement a
developmental mentoring or supervisory scheme, noted to be
a key facet of undergraduate research by Lopatto (2003). While
this project offered support and developmental opportunities once
students were accepted to present, it may be that this same support
is required prior to submitting an abstract for consideration, which
for many students will be the first time they have enacted this
process.
The conference intends to investigate the experience of participating
in UR for the students by exploring the following questions:
• Why do students choose to take part in this UR opportunity?
• What do the students hope to gain from taking part?
• Do students pursue research areas not covered in their
programme or simply modify, or present parts of, previous
assessments?
• What are the experiences of the planning, writing and delivery
process?
It is currently expected that surveys and focus groups would
gather sufficient data to answer many of the above questions in
this instance. However, there are different approaches in use across
other examples of UR. In order to gain a richer insight into the
learning development of students in relation to participation in
conferences, Hall (2015) utilised reflective journals to demonstrate
that students gained a deeper understanding of research and their
own social work practices. This approach, while potentially timeconsuming, can allow participants to draw links between personal,
professional and cultural practices (Cutforth, 2013; Hall, 2015). In
addition to possibly pursuing reflective learning journals, there may
be some scope to utilise or develop an undergraduate research skill
development framework, similar to that of Willison and O’Reegan’s
(2007). Measures such as the above may afford a richer and more
longitudinal analysis of the impact of conducting undergraduate