Abstract
Research experiences allow undergraduates to be actively involved with exploring contested questions, making empirical observations, and utilizing cutting-edge data analysis software to answer important empirical questions. However, typical apprenticeship model suffers from providing those research opportunities to only a select few students. In order to bring undergraduate research opportunities to a larger and more diverse array of students, many disciplines in the natural sciences have integrated Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) into their courses. This project seeks to explore the efficacy of CUREs based experiences in an upper-level political science course. Specifically, research-based activities were integrated into a course on the U.S. Supreme Court to allow students to build research skills while gaining content-specific knowledge about the Court. Students' attitudes and comfort level toward components of the research process were measured using surveys. Results indicate that students’ skill and comfort levels significantly improved from pre- to post-class surveys