In our previous post, we, the members of the Infant Development Lab, shared advice for students on how to prepare to present research posters. In Part 2 of this series, we will now share several ways faculty mentors can support students with the poster presentation process, and some of these begin long before conference presentation abstracts are even prepared.

Facilitate students’ familiarity with the field of research.  

Each week, we prepare for group lab meetings by reading scholarly research related to our research projects and completing article summaries, annotations, reflections, and/or critiques. Sometimes, we each read different articles, while other times, we all read the same article. Regardless, during our weekly lab meetings, we discuss what we have read, how it relates to our research, and what we have learned or have questions about.  

This helps build lab members’ individual and collective knowledge about the field every week, shows students how to discuss research findings (Bowman and Stage 2002), and could help students feel less anxious and more prepared when it comes time to present their own research. We also meet one-on-one each week to discuss specific aspects of our research projects, which similarly involves reading and integrating other research articles into our work. Together, these practices build a culture where students are expected to synthesize and discuss research on a regular basis (Walkington 2014). 

Build camaraderie and accountability. 

Many research tasks involve a considerable amount of perseverance and even vulnerability, as the outcome of research is inherently uncertain (Thurman and Vandermaas-Peeler 2023; forthcoming). Therefore, building community among a research team can be useful in supporting students’ motivation as they see their peers navigating similar hurdles and triumphs as they progress through research (Shanahan et al. 2015; Walkington 2014). Knowing they have a friendly lab team who is familiar with how much effort they put into their work present to support them during a presentation can bolster students’ confidence and pride (e.g., one of us bought flowers for a fellow student lab member to celebrate her successful presentation).

Engage in backward planning. 

At the beginning of the term or academic year, mentors and each student should try to delineate major research goals (Shanahan et al. 2015). This is because the status of each student’s project may differ, and research goals should be tailored accordingly. Students may have trouble planning for due dates and completing all their academic work on time, and they may have even more difficulty judging how long it will take to complete research tasks they have never done before. Backwards planning, therefore, could help students meet incremental milestones along the way to major goals, including writing and revising abstracts and creating their research presentation (see example in Table 1).  

Table 1: Example of backwards planning stages for a poster presentation. External deadlines in red

After communicating the major goals and timeline for the research presentation planning process, faculty mentors can provide their students a collection of resources to help students create their posters.  

Examples, templates, and tips. 

We share examples of past research presentations from the lab, or from other research groups who presented at professional conferences. This can help students visualize possibilities for their own presentation formats and layouts and serve as a launching pad for creativity. Indeed, many faculty have presented posters at some point in their career and could share their own prior posters, especially from earlier points in their career. Doing so could help students see how much their mentor has improved their work over time, which shows healthy vulnerability and can help reduce students’ intimidation (Thurman 2024). Furthermore, mentors could create poster templates for students based on their prior research and experience. Templates might include a general structure for each section, commonly used figures (e.g., lab set-ups or diagrams), or logos. Having access to all this could help students feel like they can build from their mentor’s prior work and not reinvent from the very beginning. 

From our own experience, we have learned the first step in the poster presentation planning process is not the poster, but rather, finalizing the text. Therefore, we do not begin arranging our posters in PowerPoint until we have completed writing everything in a separate Word document (see backwards planning in Table 1). This is because Word permits comments and track changes easier than PowerPoint, and there is no reason for us to spend a great deal of time arranging everything perfectly in PowerPoint if the text still needs significant revisions. Thus, each poster we create in our lab is duplicated in both Word and PowerPoint format. Sharing examples in this way promotes transparency for students and helps them understand and meet the professional expectations required for their work (Walkington 2014).  

Feedback along the way. 

With adequate backwards planning, there will hopefully be multiple opportunities for students to get timely feedback from their mentor, and even other supportive colleagues (Shanahan et al. 2015; see Table 1). Prior to submission of abstracts, mentors can help students prepare by providing an outline of how abstracts are typically structured. Then, they can collaborate on an outline and the mentor can assist the student with tailoring the scope of their abstract appropriately. This might involve the mentor actually sitting down with the student and showing them how to use research articles to write components of their abstracts (e.g., Bowman and Stage 2002).  

Once abstracts are accepted, the mentor can coach the student on how to expand the information from the abstract into a full research poster. Depending on the project progress, students could prepare finalized components of the presentation (e.g., method) while they are actively working on another (e.g., results; Bowman and Stage 2002). When posters are finalized and printed, lab teams or departments can come together prior to the actual presentation date to provide feedback or practice their presentations. In the past, our lab team has held a joint lab meeting with another developmental lab in our department where we have provided written feedback on scaled-down printouts of each poster presentation. We have also reserved rooms to practice our full poster presentations with a small audience of friendly peers and colleagues, which can help mentors identify where students might still need support (e.g., using figures on the poster as cues for explanations), can build the student presenter’s confidence, and could help more junior students or mentors learn from their own vicarious involvement in the presentation planning and preparation process.  

Conclusion

Altogether, the process of planning and preparing a poster begins early and can be supported in a number of ways. Presenting is a noteworthy accomplishment which encourages students to deeply analyze and synthesize their research, helping them gain a more thorough understanding of their work. This can bolster confidence and help build students’ identity development as scholars and often is very rewarding for mentors and students alike (Seymour et al. 2004; Thurman and Vandermaas-Peeler 2025).  

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References 

Bowman, Martha Heath, and Frances K. Stage. 2002. “Personalizing the Goals of Undergraduate Research.” Journal of College Science Teaching 32 (2): 120. https://my.nsta.org/resource/?id=10.2505/4/jcst02_032_02_120https://my.nsta.org/resource/?id=10.2505/4/jcst02_032_02_120. 

Seymour, Elaine, Anne‐Barrie Hunter, Sandra L. Laursen, and Tracee DeAntoni. 2004. “Establishing the Benefits of Research Experiences for Undergraduates in the Sciences: First Findings from a Three‐Year Study.” Science Education 88 (4): 493-534. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.10131.

Shanahan, Jenny Olin, Elizabeth Ackley-Holbrook, Eric Hall, Kearsley Stewart, and Helen Walkington. 2015. “Ten Salient Practices of Undergraduate Research Mentors: A Review of the Literature.” Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning 23 (5): 359-376. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2015.1126162.

Thurman, Sabrina. 2024. “Cultivating Vulnerability in Mentoring Relationships.” Center for Engaged Learning (Blog), Elon University. April 30, 2024. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/cultivating-vulnerability-in-mentoring-relationships. 

Thurman, Sabrina L., and Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler. 2023. “Adaptive Undergraduate Research Mentoring in a Constellation Model.” Perspectives on Undergraduate Research Mentoring 11. https://eloncdn.blob.core.windows.net/eu3/sites/923/2023/03/T2201.pdf.  

Thurman, Sabrina L., and Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler. Forthcoming. “‘I Have Allowed Myself to be Bold’: Reflections on Relational Mentoring in Undergraduate Research.” Perspectives on Undergraduate Research Mentoring 13. 

Walkington, Helen. 2014. “Quality Enhancement of Undergraduate Research—Further Strategies to Increase Student Engagement in Research Dissemination.” Brookes E-journal of Learning and Teaching 6 (1). 

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About the Authors 

Sabrina Thurman is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Elon University and serves as a seminar leader for CEL’s 2023-2025 research seminar on Mentoring Meaningful Learning Experiences. She is an active mentor of undergraduate research in developmental psychology and co-designed a peer mentoring program to support first generation college students at Elon University. She has several publications and presentations on mentoring in higher education and has received awards for teaching excellence. 

Kenan Carter ’25, Kyla Zeldin ’25, Megan Parks ‘25, and Anna Grace Gilbert ’27 are psychology majors and undergraduate student research mentees who work with Dr. Sabrina Thurman in the Infant Development Lab, which is housed within the psychology department at Elon University. 

How to Cite This Post 

Thurman, Sabrina L. 2025. “Collaboration in Creation: A Guide for Preparing and Presenting Research Posters – Part 2, For Mentors.” Center for Engaged Learning (Blog), Elon University. April 22, 2025. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/collaboration-in-creation-a-guide-for-preparing-and-presenting-research-posters-part-2-for-mentors.