Despite recent interest in the impact of undergraduate research on student development, there has not been much work done on the relationship between participation in undergraduate research and the development of social science and humanities students. Using data from Truman State University, this paper found that students who participated in collaborative undergraduate research with faculty early on reported significant gains in the ability to (I) think analytically and logically;(2) put ideas together;(3) learn on their own. Further, these gains were greater than those reported by students who did not participate in collaborative research with a faculty member. Moreover, it was found that early participation in collaborative research was of particular benefit for first-generation college students.

Despite the great interest in the impact of undergraduate research on student development in the literature on higher education, there has not been much work done on the relationship between participation in undergraduate research and the development of social science and humanities students. To be sure, there has been a considerable amount of literature on the relationship between the conduct of research and undergraduate success generally, but most of this work has focused on student participation in undergraduate research in the natural sciences. Indeed, very little work has been done on how early engagement in undergraduate research affects social science and humanities students. This oversight may be due