How Common Is Undergraduate Publication in Psychology? An Examination of Faculty Vitae From Top Colleges and Universities

Abstract

Despite extensive research on the benefits of faculty-undergraduate collaborative research, little is known about the outcomes of such collaborations, such as coauthored publication in peer-reviewed journals. To address this gap, we analyzed faculty curricula vitae from 60 top U.S. institutions (20 primarily undergraduate, 20 masters-granting, and 20 research-intensive) to obtain estimates of the prevalence of faculty-undergraduate coauthored publication in psychology. We sent email requests to 8 randomly-selected faculty members from each psychology department in this top 60 (or to the whole department if they had fewer than 8 members). In total, 157 of 459 faculty contacted (34.2%) responded with their full vita. Our results revealed that a substantial majority of faculty (83.4%) had coauthored at least one paper with an undergraduate, with an average of 7.5 coauthored publications (approximately 2 of which were first authored by an undergraduate). Moreover, these publications involved an average of 12.6 undergraduate coauthors (typically in the 2nd or 3rd author position) and accounted for almost 20% of faculty members’ total publications. We also found that, even controlling for overall productivity, faculty of higher rank and those at primarily undergraduate institutions generally coauthored more undergraduate publications compared to faculty of lower rank and/or at masters-granting and especially research-intensive universities. Finally, an analysis of publication trends over time showed that undergraduate publication is becoming increasingly common in psychology, and that faculty are publishing with undergraduates earlier in their careers. We hope our findings inspire more faculty to publish with their undergraduate students.