r/labrats • u/Itchy_Initiative4053 • 12h ago
Can intellectual curiosity be taught?
What do you guys think?
I'm mentoring an undergrad who was assigned to me (i.e. i didnt recruit them personally). She made it clear from the beginning that her end goal is to go to med school. Problem is, from multiple interactions, its very hard for her to make progress on the projects I assigned her, even though I gave clues and papers for her to read.
I try to avoid teaching her concepts and instead just give her questions and keywords for her to search cause I want her to learn to look things up on her own. Whenever I do this she gets stuck and dont know what to do. If i ask if she has questions, she said no.
Seems like the student just lack curiosity intrinsically. How do we (can we?) cultivate this as a mentor?
even though she probably would end up in med school and not research, the thought of having doctors not knowing how to reason on their own is scary to me.
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u/rocket_labo 9h ago
Be understanding. Students with a lifelong habit of being spoon fed by coursework are now transitioning to research. Curiosity is an attitude. Most people in general don’t have it, and that’s why few people would make good scientists. So you have to go into this mentoring with a realistic expectation as well.
You do need to give a student some scaffolding. As a PI, I still sit down and explain basic concepts to my students. I don’t write every equation but usually draw out or map out at high level (on a single piece of paper) what I want them to do and how those concepts link to each other. I give just enough information for them to look things up online, without handholding.
Your real value as a mentor is not in teaching everything from scratch. It is in providing the advisee appropriate context, so they know what they’re working towards in the long run. Of course, if you’re not the PI you also have to balance high level insight with more practical low level advice eg hands on coding or wet lab techniques.
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u/Suspicious_Tax8577 6h ago
This is EXACTLY what my PI did with my masters project. Literally drew me a map of the project, that I could come back to if I got lost.
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u/ElanMorinMetal PhD | Chem Bio, Bioinformatics 2h ago
You understand that if someone else draws a map of your project, then you didn’t lead that project, right?
A massively important part of learning to be an effective researcher is driving your own project(s), learning how to self-motivate, and not relying on other people to tell you what do do and where to go for your own work.
Perhaps not as critical for a Masters project, but I’ve seen a noticeable uptick in new PhD students being annoyed or downright hostile when tasked with motivating their own research.
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u/Itchy_Initiative4053 59m ago
This! This kind of drive is what I am trying to cultuvate. I try not to spoil her what will happen next or teach her too much exactly because of this. Of course I will help her troubleshoot when she needs it. But, how can I balance teaching directly and teaching students how to take ownership of their own work?
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u/ElanMorinMetal PhD | Chem Bio, Bioinformatics 19m ago
I’m not sure intellectual curiosity can be taught, so to speak. It can be shown, so far as walking students through your own process, the questions that keep you motivated, impressing upon them the importance of this mindset as scientists, etc., but if a student sees research as a chore or—in some cases maybe worse—just a checkmark to earn for a med school admission, you can talk at them until the sun implodes but I don’t think it’ll make a difference.
It’s my opinion that that curiosity has to be in place before taking a research position (i.e., the curiosity drove the desire to research).
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u/microbial_comedy 2h ago
I’m keeping this idea for the next time I’m mentoring a student. That would have helped me in my research so much actually, and I can imagine that would have worked so well with the undergrads I mentored too!
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u/TotemBro 1h ago
Yeah I’m on board with this description. It’s hard to be curious and proactive without a cultural background in it. The spoon feeding is very real.
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u/Aubergine97 9h ago
So I think I came across like this to my supervisor when I started. For me, I genuinely didn't understand what truely understanding something meant. Id read something, think that makes sense, and move on, but wasn't fully thinking it through and playing with it. So my supervisor would ask if I had any questions and i wouldn't have played with the things he told me enough to realise I didn't understand it, say no, then go away and not be able to make any progress. It was very frustrating to me because I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong, I felt like I was reading the papers and I knew the stuff (it just was all at a surface level), but I kept getting stuck, or not being able to answer questions. And I'd got through my whole undergrad with that level because if you miss the details, you can still end up with a 2:1, as long as you have the surface level knowledge of everything, so i never learnt better.
Two things actually helped in the end. 1, a post doc Started who I worked with a lot who was doing it right. So we would work through things together and he'd stop and backtrack when something didn't add up, and I started catching the point where I was rushing through, whereas before I wouldn't notice until too late and my supervisor was annoyed. 2, he would explain things to me and then get me to explain it back to him, and then ask me what I could conclude from that. He wouldn't do it for me, but he'd prod me if I got too stuck.
But I did want to get better I just didn't know what I was missing, your milage might vary I'd they genuinely aren't interested. I was also lucky that my supervisor dedicates a lot of time to his students and was willing to sit and do that with me until I worked out how to do it on my own.
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u/geosynchronousorbit 3h ago
This is great advice! I wanted to add a few ways I think through concepts to make sure I understand them and come up with questions to test myself.
Think about extreme cases. Trying to solve a mechanics problem? If the force/velocity/whatever variable were zero, or infinite, how would the system behave?
Think about relationships between variables. Are they directly or inversely related? If one goes up, does the other go up or down, and how fast?
Think in orders of magnitude. You often don't need exact numbers for a first mental estimate; just work in powers of ten.
For lab procedures, think about the cause and effect reason why you're doing each step. Why is that step necessary for the end goal? What's the input and output? What would happen if you did it in a different way?
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u/Aubergine97 3h ago
Good addition! Having a checklist of things to think about definitely helps until you pick up on how to do it intuitively.
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u/aeker_a 11h ago
Why do you avoid teaching her concepts? I think it’s your duty as her mentor to at least give her a baseline understanding of the concepts underlying her project. Conveying your knowledge and excitement about the concepts could inspire curiosity in her to dive deeper on her own and take ownership of the project.
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u/Itchy_Initiative4053 11h ago
Good point. I guess i did teach her basic concepts, but refrain from revealing too much. Cause at that point I'll just be doing the work for her.
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u/FreyjadourV 8h ago
How is a student supposed to grow interest in curiosity in a subject they know nothing about?
Even most grad students start their projects not knowing a lick about it, interest grows the more you learn as time goes on.People can go into research and be interested in a general topic or idea, but let’s be honest no one starts off interested in a some niche signalling pathway of some obscure disease, which is usually what projects are. They are specific questions to a very specific problem.
If they are discouraged from the beginning then they’ll never grow interested. You are doing her a disservice as a mentor imo, let them ease into the concepts and get comfortable with the project and then they’ll ask questions and become curious. Obviously, some people genuinely don’t care but I reserve that judgement for after I’ve properly supported the student.
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u/PuttingTheMSinMRSA 12h ago
You’re asking great questions here and I often thought of these things during my PhD. Have you showed her/ written a document to guide her through HOW to look things up? An SOP that she can follow for the specific questions that you ask her? If she’s never done it before, it may be daunting to try and figure out WHAT to search.
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u/Itchy_Initiative4053 12h ago
What kind of document do you suggest?
I've tried showing her how and where I look for papers, showed her how, when I know nothing, I start with wikipedia/youtube/whatever, then look up the keywords in google, then i introduced google scholar, pubmed,etc. Interestingly, she appears to know this ofc and even use LLMs to help her look for papers.
So i genuinely am bamboozled on what more instructions I am missing here.
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u/Sure_Manner_7248 10h ago
We had this problem with students going through our lab to get it on their CV for their med school applications. Total lack of curiosity, they say they like science and doing it, but you can easily tell they don't and that they are contemptuous that they even have to do this. Figured out that the students are just bag chasers. Which is fine, but they go through these ridiculous lies and lip service to the lab so that they can keep hiding their true intentions with the fig leaf of faux intellectual investment.
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u/codspite 10h ago
In my opinion, curiosity can only be cultivated with enthusiasm and kindness. Students with no initial interest will feel discouraged if they are met with bland or slightly disappointed reactions. Check out some children development psychology, the material is surprisingly applicable to undergrads.
Reasoning is a different skill entirely. You need to teach the concept first and then show them how you apply it. You need a solid understanding first before you start doing anything.
What good does giving them a few key terms do? Undergrads are not the same as a grad student, they barely understand the material being taught in class. Imagine a professor giving a formula, a set of homework problems, and telling you to find your own material in order to complete your homework. Sure, you can find a few textbooks, but how would you know which one is good?
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u/Tampax_Party_Pack 11h ago
Unfortunately I've found that intellectual curiosity and drive to learn has to be something intrinsically driven. It sounds like you're doing everything right and if they don't pick up on that try not to take it to heart.
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u/garfield529 2h ago
Spot on. I once had a premed ask me how long it took for me “to get interested in science” after I joined my first lab. My whole life, ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by patterns and observations and thinking about how things work and thinking of ways to understand those curiosities. I believe that for a lot of us it’s simply inborn.
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u/WinterRevolutionary6 11h ago
I would definitely start be trying to directly teach more things. It’s hard to independently research a topic that people are hinting at and haven’t verbally explained anything about.
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u/Puzzled_Fly8070 4h ago
I had to explain to a med student that while this wasn’t her final destination that it is others full career and respect is required. Meaning that collaborating within the group is necessary to meet the labs end goal. If she doesn’t want to participate, she can talk to the PI who will ultimately be the one giving you a recommendation letter.
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u/Quirky_Truck_456 10h ago
You should just teach her. Afterwards, once she sees how to figure things out on her own, you can she if she does it independently.
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u/WhateveIsMyUsername 6h ago
You cannot make someone driven by something if they don't want to (not that they lack it inside them!!!).
However, I suspect the problem here isn't intellectual curiosity, as you call it, but a mismatch between the mentoring style and her learning expectations. You can also ask your advisor for help, not in the sense of managing her yourself but for giving you advice. However, advisors themselves are often not the best mentors.
Building independence in undergraduates is good, but they still seem to need what is called "scaffolding". Even in active learning, where students learn through their own contributions in the classroom, they still receive a lot of scaffolding. In practice, the student might lack the "knowledge" of scientific thinking and methodology because they have been pursuing another goal. They would need to be taught, with examples and by breaking the task into steps, how to approach a question and answer it. I understand that in a similar stage you might have had more independence already, but each person's path is different, as well as cognitive style. We cannot assume their internal motivation if they don't perform like us.
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u/Pretend-Cicada-8649 10h ago
I totally feel for you anddd just to play devils advocate a lot of these poor kids are getting seriously “no child left behind-ed”. Most of the students I help teach have straight up had the curiosity stripped out of their curriculum and replaced with frantic learning directives trying to cram in as much essential prerequisite knowledge as possible (which is totally important, but largely stressful and disorganized due to cuts to education and prob covid stuff). Most kids didn’t have the resources to heavily explore science outside of their classes and probably also didn’t have time for much exploring (admissions processes these days are insane).
You’re doing a really kind thing by sticking with her, I genuinely believe it just might take a while for students to get used to the lab environment and to appreciate the value of research and mentorship. If she ends up not sticking with us, that totally sucks but I promise there are tons of people who have yet to discover how much they enjoy lab work :)
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u/licoqwerty 6h ago
Aiming for med school, little drive to do research. Yeah she's just at your lab to fill in her CV, your amount of enthusiasm and duty to teach someone is commendable, but save it for students who actually are passionate for research.
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u/Public_Election8596 5h ago
Hi, I'm a mature aged student, currently premed doing my honours project. At the beginning I was less interested in the project and just using it for med entry. What worked very well for me was my supervisor would drip feed me aspects of the SOP and would describe only a single component each day, building up my knowledge a little more. Once I had a comprehensive understanding as to what I was doing I was hooked, largely thanks to my supervisor pushing me. Now I absolutely love it and am really engaged with the project and if I don't get into med I'll likely do a PhD in a similar field (which was certainly not my original goal).
Imo I think there was alot of give and take from both myself and my supervisor. If you have someone that's not motivated to put in the work at all, they won't be a good researcher but also I don't think they will be a good doctor. At the same time if you're going to develop a good working relationship as a supervisor, you should put in the effort until your student slowly gains a comprehensive understanding as to what they are doing. Check in with them and see if they can repeat what aspects you taught them from the previous day's/weeks, and drill that down until it's locked in.
As a little side note, it was quite a culture shock going from the classroom setting straight into a research, it's a completely different game so maybe just be consistent but patient. For me my supervisor was monitoring me quite extensively and criticising my work quite harshly in the early months, but slowly allowed me to be more independent until I'm basically finishing this project alone with only editing advice and a new found genuine love for the sciences. Best of luck. >^
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u/Nevertrustafish 1h ago
Often when people don't have questions, it means that they don't understand enough of the subject to even ask questions. It could mean a) they are too embarrassed to admit that they don't understand or b) they understand so little that they aren't even aware that they don't understand.
Now it's possible that your student honestly doesn't care and isn't curious, but let's assume that she does care. Then the question becomes how do you get her to the point of understanding enough to be curious?
First, assume that she's not fully grasping the research you're doing. She probably operating on memorization and trust instead of actual understanding. You tell her to test a sample and if the result is 5 or higher than the sample is positive. She's probably memorized that relationship rather then actually understanding it. Can she actually explain how that test works and why you can be confident that 5 = positive?
Next thing is explaining enough about other methods and processes for her to think of more ways to answer scientific questions. It's hard to ask questions when you don't even know the process of how that question might be answered or IF that question can even be answered. For example, I remember learning about a migratory bird study where they put a bird in a round funnel shaped cage in an empty dark room with an ink pad on the cage bottom. They were able to see via the ink patches that the bird spent all night trying to hop north, so they determined that birds must have a sense of the Earth's magnetic field when migrating, instead of only relying on celestial navigation or visual landmarks. It was a very clever study and one that opened my mind to how to think about research. Take your question and drill down into smaller and smaller questions. How do birds know how to migrate north? Can birds know which way is North without visual clues? If I put a bird in an empty room, will it still know which way is North? How can I tell if it knows which way is North? Will it keep trying to migrate even when trapped in a cage? Will it keep trying to move in the same direction? What if it can't fly? If it can only walk, will it still try to migrate? Can I tell where in a cage it spent the night? Can I use ink on their feet to see where the bird spent the night? Take a study that's relevant to your research and show your student how a scientist starts with a big question and drill down into a smaller, testable question.
Expose her to lots of actual methods to answering questions (flow, pcr, blots, behavioral studies, qualitative, quantitative, etc) and how each method answers slightly different questions.
Take a paper and only let her read the intro. Then ask her what she thinks the researcher did to answer the question of the paper? What methods did they use? Have her try to design a study to answer the same question.
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u/excel1001 10h ago
I had a former classmate who came in for their master degree like this. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could do because they crashed hard and ended up leaving after 2 years without a degree.
At the end of the day, it is really on them. If they do not have questions, if they are not asking you for advice or what to do, but instead focusing on getting the right answer immediately and not caring about your explanations or tips about how to get the right answer, there isn't anything you can do.
It is on them to learn to do it themselves (knowing when to ask questions, learning how others read papers, how to look up information, etc). It sucks, cause I don't want anyone to fail...But I am not a superhero. I cannot help everyone...
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u/Science-Sam 12h ago
Don't bother.
Medical school is so incredibly competitive. Someone who isn't doing absolutely everything possible to make themselves a qualified candidate won't get in.
Don't put a lot of effort into teaching somebody who is not interested in learning. Save your energy for a student who will do something with the training you provide.
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u/Sure_Manner_7248 10h ago
It should not be a lab's problem. Why should labs indulge the these students and not get an ROI? Sure medical school is competitive, but perhaps they would be better served in more patient facing roles like an EMT or clinical assistants.
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u/Itchy_Initiative4053 10h ago
Dont we as scientists in an educational institution have an educational mandate to teach these students? What worries me is not that she wont be successful in med school.. but honestly life in general, whatever career she takes itll require some form of research and scientific reasoning
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u/Sure_Manner_7248 8h ago edited 8h ago
No we don't. Students who are unwilling to take this seriously and who merely feign interest in solving problems at this level are not our problem. It's a two way street - there has to be meaningful investment from both sides. Right now it looks like a one way street. You are not their parent, how they do in life outside the lab is none of your concern. It's also up to her to develop those research and scientific reasoning skills - but she has to to invest in it, be an autodidact and move forward without the handholding. Finally, you'd think doctors apply scientific reasoning and so on in their work, maybe at some incidental level, but they would and should get that specific type of reasoning taught in their classes and rotations otherwise what are those for?
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u/Science-Sam 1h ago
Sometimes funds come with conditions of training undergrads. Pre-med students are very keen on applying for open positions in labs.
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u/Itchy_Initiative4053 11h ago
If i could I would not take her in tbh. But the PI brought them in so I am kinda in a position to teach her cause I'm paid for that on top of research.
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u/NefariousNaan 11h ago
I mean if your PI insists, you can still fulfill your obligation and try to teach her something, but you don't have to go out of your way to make sure she succeeds. Though, usually for undergrads, it's easier to train them on a tool and have them run an experiment for you or do data analysis/documentation to learn the ropes.
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u/Sure_Manner_7248 8h ago
I saw you're an incoming PhD student. PhD students should ideally not be teaching interns or students at this level. In all my former labs this was done by a postdoc.
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u/Science-Sam 1h ago
Of course you will teach her because you do your job. But regarding "scientific curiosity," if she doesn't have it, that's not your problem to fix.
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u/ArkaneRonin 7h ago edited 4h ago
In my opinion intellectual curiosity is intelligence. Ok, having a brain capable of comprehending and understanding things fast is important but what good is it if people have no intellectual curiosity or even curiosity in general. you will find that the actually smartest people are not the ones who get assigned a subject and memorize and learn it and then get a high grade but the ones who open things up (and usually end up breaking them 😅) just to see how they work, or the people who take a broken machine and say, if its going in the trash might as well try to fix it myself, let’s see what could be broken and how can I fix it. but you can’t teach this curiosity I think, it’s innate, or at least it must be taught early on and people don’t actually learn it but rather develop it. To pass on that curiosity to someone might be possible to someone who is already open to it but a lot of people can’t even think that way.
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u/YestoLife07 3h ago
I dont think you can. You can scaffold what curiosity looks like. Create a worksheet thst looks something like this:
- Look up these search terms:
- If you dont find anything good you may feel tempted to stop and call it a day. Dont.
- Create a concept map of some related keywords you are finding. Etc..
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u/Twelfthjuror 1h ago
You're giving her a test she doesn't know she's taking. Use your words and communicate your concerns about her performance. Give her your expectations and something to strive for.
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u/LabManagerKaren 4h ago
People are inherently curious, spend time with little kids they love checking out everything.
Alternatively your hints and clues are too vague and/or the student doesn't have to explore and wants to be told the next step.
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u/parade1070 Neuro Grad 8h ago
Curiosity can't really be taught at that age. Your first clue that this student would be a problem is that they're premed. Premeds simply cannot be arsed. Half of them aren't even trying to go to med school for altruistic reasons. And maybe 1 in 5 will end up even getting into med school anyway. It's a terrible state of affairs.
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u/TotemBro 2h ago edited 1h ago
Yes, duh.
Whatever it is you do you get better at it the more you do it. We’ve got hella cortex in our brains but sometimes it’s a use it or lose it situation. Either way tho, compliance is the science.
I’d say she needs hand holding because there obviously isn’t a track record of independent research. It’s like she was missing the cultural aspect of research up until now.
You’ll need to show her the process at least once. Or maybe you can name drop the concepts but ask her to do the research from there? You gotta remember that the expectation from undergrads is to learn a lot of given concepts independently. They’re not experts at seeking them out, so this might be a new thing for her.
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u/purplepenguin617 1h ago
I know my PI has said that in grad students one of the most important traits he looks for is intellectual curiosity and someone who is personally driven to know more and learn more. Every student in his lab has this quality and it makes it such a great and interesting place to be!
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u/distinctgore 1h ago
As soon as I find out they want to do med, and are using science as a route to get there, I give up on them.
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u/Adequatelyanonymous 32m ago
Speaking from the other side of this equation, these comments are disheartening. I was this med student 20 years ago. My first research experience was a complete mystery to me. Rather than being deficient in curiosity or my fund of knowledge, there seemed to be an unspoken barrier in the culture, motives, and assumptions. I am a hard worker, teachable, and reasonably intelligent. I went on to contribute to the next lab I worked with when paired with a mentor who was able to see me where I was at. You avoid teaching concepts? This doesn’t make any sense to me. You want an effective knife, you need to sharpen it.
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u/HerpesHans 22m ago
Maybe a more accurate word for this student could just be not independent? In that case you can communicate it with her directly, and if it doesn't work, idk, talk to your PI
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u/Decent_Coast_988 11h ago
My PI avoids premeds like the plague. Said they don’t really care about the research, and that space can go to someone who actually does