Arranging Student Scientific Research as an Educational Technology: The Experience of Regional Universities of Russia

Nowadays, student scientific research is a significant component for training specialists for Industry 4.0. However, many students do not feel like wanting much to participate in this kind of activity when studying at university. Therefore, there is a challenge in facing educators, i.e., to make a climate of learning in such a way so that learners would not only be able to acquire skills, competences, and proficiencies according to their major but also be able to promote their willingness for independent search for getting new knowledge and mastering research methods and practical techniques to solve scientific challenges and analyze various information flows. The purpose of the study is to develop a methodology for arranging student scientific research, which enables to provide with skilled professional employees. To accomplish the declared goal, the authors developed the online course The Basic Scientific Research, the methodology for involving students in scientific research; recommendations to include special subject matters in the content of academic course, for stimulating joint studies of educators and students; and the online course on training lecturers to the technology presented. The experiment was conducted from 2014 to 2018 among students of IT and economics at regional Russian universities. 242 students and 46 lecturers took part in it. Using the developed system by educators resulted in the following achievements: the students published more than 450 scientific articles, won 28 grants of various levels, and participated and became prize winners in more than 50 scientific research contests. One-third of the participants in the experiment received a merit semester scholarship for scientific research regularly. They participated and won competitions for the President of the Russian Federation grants, the Government of the Russian Federation. Business representatives gave top marks for graduate theses. The educational technology presented in the paper is prepared for scaling and be applied at universities.