Abstract
In undergraduate degrees in the social sciences, research courses are usually a compulsory component of the curriculum. This chapter explores the pedagogical engagement, through the lens of acculturation theory, that is needed for creating scientific thinking skills via research courses. We posit that students who choose their discipline voluntarily are more likely to pedagogically engage (i.e. integrate or assimilate) into their discipline’s research paradigms. However, those students pursuing a discipline which was not their first choice may be less engaged in developing scientific thinking skills within these compulsory components and may be more likely to adopt a pedagogically disengaged (i.e. segregated) approach. The chapter explores the implications of these different pedagogical engagement approaches for students and how teachers may create learning environments to develop their scientific thinking skills.