The "Apprenticeship Model" for Enhanced Student Learning

By Steven M. Specht

            Like most students who choose to major in psychology, while I was an undergraduate, I enjoyed my abnormal psychology course and, at the time, didn’t really understand why I needed to take statistics. Also, like most students, I could have completed my bachelor’s degree by simply taking the required courses without being involved directly with conducting research or doing any kind of internship. But because I took my schoolwork seriously and I expended the time and effort to write and revise the papers I submitted for classes, my professors noticed. After earning an “A” in Research Methods -- one of the most challenging courses I took in college – Dr. James McCroskery asked if I would be interested in doing research with him the following semester. I was thrilled and jumped at the opportunity. Our research examined the relationship between the Type-A behavior pattern and self-reports of minor body symptoms (e.g., headaches, skin rashes, insomnia). Our work eventually led to a presentation at the annual meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association in 1982.

            My experience as an undergraduate research assistant for one of my professors became the springboard to my work as a research assistant at Colgate University and my eventual admission into the doctoral program in psychobiology at Binghamton University.

            In fact, the “apprentice model” is the tradition in scholarly training in the empirical sciences. My doctoral advisor typically ran her lab with four or five graduate student “apprentices” and a cadre of undergraduate research assistants. In addition to publishing papers while in graduate school, we were expected to present our research at the annual meetings of the Society for Neuroscience and the Eastern Psychological Association (as my undergraduate advisor had done). This all makes sense when you think about the fact that empirical research is not simply learning a collection of facts, but rather is an intensive scholarly enterprise which requires being actively involved with the processes of science.

            I am proud to say that I have continued the tradition of the apprenticeship model throughout my career both at Lebanon Valley and Utica College by inviting promising students to get involved with the research that I have conducted over the years. Their involvement affords them with opportunities to learn the process of research and to present their work at local, regional and national conferences. And as they had done for me, these learning experiences typically transform students’ lives by making them more competitive graduate school candidates or potential employees.

            But since this is an assessment blog, I suppose I should mention something about assessment. Assessing programmatic outcomes from an apprenticeship model is fairly straightforward and requires no rubric. Although the gold standard of publication is often elusive; the silver standard of conference presentations is easy to document and is generally recognized as externally validated and valued accomplishments. Virtually all departments are well aware of these standards. A potential problem arises when administrators don’t realize how potentially useful these data are for the institution in terms of assessment (and potential marketing and advancement).

            Assessing the outcomes that students gain individually from being part of a research “apprentice” program is perhaps more challenging.  The face validity of such involvement seems apparent. For anyone who has worked with students in this capacity, the transformation of the students seems “obvious.” It might seem reasonable, however, to compare graduate school acceptance rates or employment rates of students who were apprentices during their undergraduate years with those who were not involved. These data would be confounded by differences in levels of “pre-apprentice” motivation or initiation. It is also typical that students who work closely with a faculty member obtain more impressive and informative letters of recommendation.

            But now perhaps we have gone too far down the assessment path. It is traditional in the empirical sciences (and other disciplines) to provide opportunities for students to become involved with active learning which transform them as scholars and citizens. Hmmm, “tradition, opportunity, transformation”… coincidentally, that’s the Utica College slogan that preceded “Never Stand Still”.