Metaphors for Undergraduate Research

I put a lot of stock in teaching research as a process. Planning research is an important part of the process and students often wish to begin collecting data as quickly as possible. Of course, careful planning is critical to the success of any research project and many of our students have to be reined back as they champ at the bit to start.

I used a Sisyphean metaphor for research originally, but students did not like it because it made research look like an impossible task. After they made their objections clear to me, I changed the metaphor to a more pleasant one.

Here is the original, not-so-pleasant view of research:

Like poor Sisyphus in Greek mythology, students saw their research efforts as an impossible task. The upslope represented the planning phases of research, while getting the ball to roll down the hill represented the collection and analysis of data followed by writing, presentation, and publishing.

So, I searched for a better metaphor. Something that indicated fun. Hmmmm.....



I kept the hill, but changed the task. Sledding is fun, but you have to get to the top of the hill first. On the figure on the right, I have labeled some of the specific tasks in research planning. The metaphor also reveals the timeline differences between planning research and conducting research.

Only after coming to grips with all of the aspects of research planning and testing them (in the Pilot Study), are researchers ready to collect data and undertake the remaining steps. Like sledding down the hill, these steps come at a faster clip than the steps in planning.

Students are pleasantly surprised once they begin to collect data. That process is usually faster than they expect. Carefully planned data analysis also can happen quickly. Sometimes it only takes a few minutes after the raw data are entered into a computer program. As deadlines loom, drafting and editing also speed by. The few minutes it takes to present a research report scarcely convey the long hours it took to get there.

For students who elect to publish their data, much more work awaits them. Maybe we can think of those efforts as climbing the next hill.