Grad Students Gain (in Research) by Teaching

A study published Thursday in Science found that science graduate students are more likely to improve their research skills if they are also teaching. The study counters conventional wisdom that time spent on teaching limits advancement in research. David Feldon, assistant professor of education at the University of Virginia and lead investigator on the study, found that graduate students in the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics who both teach and conduct research demonstrate greater growth over an academic year in their abilities to generate testable hypotheses and design experiments around those hypotheses than do grad students who only conduct research.