ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to understand how the undergraduate students of tourism and hospitality find their way to research. This is done by focusing on their thesis experience. We observe that the existing literature disproportionally focuses on research experience of STEM undergraduate students in spite of the fact that research skills are becoming very important for advanced careers in management, including tourism and hospitality. By applying the touchpoint theory, we set up three focus groups with both thesis and non-thesis undergraduate students (N = 21). We have developed a four-quadrant framework consisting of nine touchpoints, some of which are leakage points (e.g., research methods course content) acting as negative influences on students’ willingness to conduct research, while others act as injection points (e.g., conversations with professors), or positive influencers. This study offers practical suggestions for university educators on how to design meaningful research experiences for undergraduate students in tourism.

中文翻译：

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旅游和酒店专业的学生如何找到研究路径？

摘要 本研究的目的是了解旅游和酒店专业的本科生如何找到研究方法。这是通过专注于他们的论文经验来完成的。我们观察到现有文献不成比例地关注 STEM 本科生的研究经验，尽管研究技能对于包括旅游和酒店在内的高级管理职业变得非常重要。通过应用接触点理论，我们为论文和非论文本科生（N = 21）设立了三个焦点小组。我们开发了一个由九个接触点组成的四象限框架，其中一些是泄漏点（例如，研究方法课程内容）对学生进行研究的意愿产生负面影响，而其他则作为注入点（例如，与教授的对话）或积极的影响者。本研究为大学教育工作者提供了关于如何为旅游本科生设计有意义的研究体验的实用建议。