A current trend in undergraduate education is the provision of authentic research activities that give students opportunities to develop essential skills for their discipline and a deeper... Show moreA current trend in undergraduate education is the provision of authentic research activities that give students opportunities to develop essential skills for their discipline and a deeper understanding of the fundamental concepts. Although much has been written about the benefits of incorporating research into undergraduate teaching and learning, many issues are still contested, indistinct, or even ambiguous. The central argument in this chapter is that authentic research opportunities (if well incorporated in learning activities and well supervised by teaching staff) can and should provide students with a valuable transformative learning experience, which gives students more than only an increase of skills, knowledge, and attitudes: it should give students a lived epistemological experience of what it means to construct knowledge in their discipline. In order to develop research-based teaching and learning activities which are transformative for students, we, educators and educational researchers alike, need to focus our efforts on developing new teaching approaches toward increasing the transformative nature of research-based education at our institutes. Show less
