January 2014
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9 Reads
This paper identifies and offers solutions to some of the major challenges that occur in multi-year research projects. Continuity of research is often made difficult due to the high turnover of personnel and leadership in research projects at the undergraduate and graduate levels. New research group leaders and members often do not formally assess the time they have available to work on the project and nor make realistic goals for advancement of the research. Often university professors and advisors cannot devote a significant amount of time to a single research project based on the volume of projects and other time constraints. This paper takes into account the experiences of 32 former master's and doctoral students who conducted research in mathematics and engineering at a research university. Two case studies offer techniques that have been effective at the undergraduate and graduate levels for laboratory research. The results offer solutions to create continuity in multi-year research projects, goal setting for realistic contributions to the project, and how to effectively keep project advisors involved in the research.