Summit Recommendations Provide Guidance to Expand Undergraduate Research Experiences at Community Colleges

The Importance of Scientific Publishing: Teaching an Undergraduate How to Swim the Entire Length of the Pool

Since 2009, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSM&T) has hosted a new Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site entitled Back to the Future. The focus of the REU site is metallurgical engineering research with an emphasis in art and history. This latter aspect is embedded within the site as there is significant evidence that a richer learning environment can be created in engineering by establishing a context within the liberal arts, as described in the recent National Academy of Engineering's Educating the Engineer of 2020 report. In addition to being involved in research projects to develop specific technical skills in engineering, students in this program are engaged in unique supplemental activities that support learning the societal context and potential impact of their research. Specific program activities for a “holistic” approach to an engineering REU experience are described in the paper. A combination of professional development activities, societal context and diversity activities, and library activities are performed to investigate the broader impacts of student research. These activities lead to substantial opportunities for student self-reflection. Finally, assessment activities and results are also described in the paper with a focus on the development of students with different learning-styles and implications for recruiting from underrepresented groups in the STEM disciplines.

Purpose Many studies have examined undergraduate research experiences (UREs) as an influential approach to encouraging undergraduates to pursue doctoral education. However, less is known about the different ways UREs can support students in developing and pursuing graduate intentions. This paper aims to understand how a URE program can support students’ intentions to apply to and enroll in graduate education. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted an instrumental case study that focuses on one URE as a bounded system. Using a constant–comparative analytical method, the authors propose a typology of different types of support that mattered to students who participated in the URE. Findings The URE offered four types of support: aspirational support, social support, functional support and connections to opportunities. Within the domain of functional support, this study identified a specific type of assistance – financial support – necessary for many students from underrepresented backgrounds to forego outside employment and participate in the URE. Originality/value This case study builds upon prior quantitative research that examines the relationship between URE participation and an array of affective, educational and career outcomes. Although this case study is not directly generalizable to other UREs, this paper offers a novel typology of support types and has potentially transferrable implications for considering how to design, evaluate and study UREs.

Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) is a new National Science Foundation (NSF) program designed to attract talented undergraduates into research careers in science, engineering, and mathematics. The program is intended to provide active research experience to students while they are still in their undergraduate years. There are two categories of support under this program: REU Sites and REU Supplements. The supplement, as the name implies, is to supplement existing NSF grants to permit an investigator to hire an undergraduate assistant. Here, I will report o n the REU site award made to the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska for summer 1987.

Use of self-determination theory (SDT) within the science classroom focuses primarily on ways to integrate intrinsic motivation into students' identity. Experiential learning plays a large role in promoting learning by shaping students' interests, identity, and intrinsic aspirations. This phenomenological research study sought to understand how experiential learning experiences helped influence career aspirations of graduate students within ecological disciplines. By determining how their experiences met three basic psychological needs outlined by SDT (competence, autonomy, and relatedness), we were able to examine which regulators drove motivation. In the qualitative pilot study, participants developed a genuine enjoyment and appreciation for their discipline as they began engaging in more complex research. As interest grew, so did levels of competence and autonomy. Students were able to apply their experiences in novel ways which enabled them to see the connectivity of their discipline and develop internal aspirations for science. In addition to aspirations supported by experiential learning opportunities, mentorship, family/cultural support, and the desire for a work-life balance further shaped their career aspirations and satisfied the basic need for relatedness. This boost of confidence and sense of belonging helped participants shed doubts and other external pressures that allowed students to believe that they might not belong in science. Finding from this pilot study helped inform the development of a larger quantitative survey. The Biological Research Experience Survey (BRES) sought to understand how the basic psychological needs of self-determination theory are being satisfied during undergraduate research experience. Using a numerous previously validated instruments from the SDT and science education literature, the BRES connected a number of underlying constructs through exploratory factor analysis. Five factors emerged, accounting for 62.19% of the variance, and were named Scientific Identity, Mentor Support, Research Motivations, and Science Degree Aspirations. The alignment of these latent factors with SDT further suggests that this framework may be useful for capturing the variation associated with these research experiences. The design of this survey helps account for the within-subject variability, allows for meaningful conclusions with smaller sample sizes, and may prove a valuable evaluation tool small programs such as UREs. Further implementation of this framework may help identify resources that motivate students toward STEM careers and enable students, and particularly those from historically under-represented groups to reach their potential in STEM disciplines.

Engaging in undergraduate research experiences is known to have broad and positive impacts on college students. Despite the benefits, achieving faculty buy-in and support can be challenging even when faculty have strong research funding. In order to understand how to better support undergraduate research programs, we applied quantitative models to explore how the impact of research funding is mediated by faculty beliefs about undergraduate research mentoring in STEM disciplines. The results indicate that faculty characteristics and beliefs about the benefits and barriers of mentoring undergraduate students in research impact the number of students mentored even when accounting for research funding levels of the individual faculty. Practical recommendations are presented based on the models from this research project in order to provide insight into how centers or units on a campus may work with faculty to support and encourage mentoring of undergraduates in research in the biomedical sciences.

We present work-in-progress reflecting on the initial year of a distinctive summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. Our REU model combines fundamental research in computational sensing with a scholarly context that connects computer science with computational liberal arts. Students are intellectually stimulated to make sense of people's behaviors and cognitive processes with multimodal sensing hardware and software. In doing so, they explore the fundamental challenges found at the intersection of computing, the human experience, and scientific interrogation. The placement of the human experience at the core of the research theme enables an environment that stimulates and cultivates an innovative undergraduate research model. We highlight outcomes from the first year and discuss three emerging practices that are central to our REU framework: (1) team-based collaborative training; (2) transdisciplinary integration; and (3) systematic prioritization of inclusiveness. We also describe how these practices are incorporated into our overall undergraduate research framework and touch upon lessons learned from feedback collected.

Editors' Commentary In this chapter a group at Illinois State University describe how they used the scholarship of teaching and learning to investigate whether having preservice teachers participate in a mathematical research experience for undergraduates (REU) program influenced their beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics. Unable to find an appropriate survey instrument, they developed their own. They explain the organization and content of the survey, tell how they piloted and tested it for reliability, and describe how the results are being used to improve the REU program. Introduction The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) can serve as a critical tool for improving instruction at the post-secondary level. If we, mathematicians and mathematics educators, can systematically explore, share, and reflect on our understanding of quality collegiate instruction, improvement in overall course quality and student learning can follow. The multifaceted nature of student learning presents a challenge for any educational study. One such facet is student beliefs. For example, an effective instructional strategy for teaching an honors calculus course for mathematics majors may not translate to a calculus course designed for business majors because of the different attitudes and beliefs of these two groups. Differences in students' views of the nature of mathematics, the importance of building mathematical understanding, the beauty of mathematics, or the standards for reasoning and proof, all can influence the success of instruction. In this chapter, we describe a SoTL study designed to inform and improve a mathematics education program that engages future secondary teachers in authentic mathematics research experiences. One of the goals of the program, the REU Site: Mathematics Research Experience for Pre-service and In-service Teachers (REU), is to change teachers' beliefs about mathematics and about the teaching and learning of mathematics and thus to influence the way they teach. Impact of Beliefs on Secondary Mathematics Teachers Numerous researchers have cited the impact of beliefs on teaching and learning (Ernest, 1989; Philipp, 2007; Schoenfeld, 1985; Silver, 1985; Thompson, 1992).

Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) enhance student retention, provide transferrable skills, and prepare students for advanced graduate study. The majority of these benefits, however, are concentrated within the natural and biological sciences; disciplines with historical under-representation of non-male students. If offered in the social sciences, UREs would be more accessible to women, students of colour, and first-generation students. But there are relatively few models and little research to confirm that UREs in the social sciences offer similar benefits to students. Using mixed methods data, we compare students’ (n = 122) and research supervisors’ (n = 56) perceptions of success in meeting learning outcomes for students participating in social science UREs. The combination of quantitative and qualitative survey data shows that students gain skills in research (e.g. data collection, management, and analysis) as well as other transferrable skills helpful in various career paths (e.g. collaboration, time management, problem-solving). We also demonstrate that faculty supervisors perceive significant benefits from overseeing UREs, such as enhancing professional development and increased job satisfaction. These findings demonstrate the need for expanding UREs beyond the biological/natural sciences where they have been focused to date.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many in person undergraduate research experiences (UREs) to pivot to remote online training. To investigate how the COVID-19 quarantine disrupted student URE outcomes over time, the current study examines Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Promoting Opportunities for Diversity in Education and Research (PODER) URE outcomes across different platforms (in-person, remote, and hybrid models) by comparing student survey data from 2019 to 2021. Participants consisted of three cohorts: 2019 (n = 26 students), 2020 (n = 33), 2021 (n = 34). The BUILD PODER Summer JumpStart program (SJS), which aims to increase diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) by recruiting mostly underrepresented students, was conducted in person in 2019, remotely in 2020 and using a hybrid model in 2021. All students completed an online survey on the first and last day of the four-week SJS program. We used one-way and mixed ANOVA models to analyze Cohort, Time (pre-test vs. post-test scores), and interaction of Cohort and Time for Research Self-Efficacy, Sense of Belonging, Mentor Relationship, Mentee Knowledge, Health, Stress, and Student Program Satisfaction measures. Despite the platform changes, student scores increased significantly over time for all measures. There was a significant main effect of Time for Research Self-Efficacy, Sense of Belonging, Mentor Relationship, Mentee Knowledge, Health Assessment, and Stress Management. Findings indicate that URE programs that are implemented remotely and using a hybrid format can provide students with experiences similar to in-person URE programs. In addition, remote UREs may provide added benefits compared to in-person programs. For instance, remote UREs could engage more historically minoritized students, who may experience barriers to access, such as work/family commitments, financial constraints, and geographic limitations.

The impact and benefits of undergraduate research experiences (URE) in the first two years of post-secondary education have been well documented. Early exposure to research experiences is effective in recruitment, diversity and persistence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) degree programs, particularly among underrepresented minority students. The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Course (SUREC) presented in this paper is a cross-institutional collaboration between a two-year college (2YC) and a four-year college (4YC), designed to expose 2YC transfer students to a rigorous 12-week URE focused on geosciences. Findings from the program evaluation indicate the SUREC increased transfer student’s STEM knowledge and skills, science identity, and self-efficacy. Twenty of the twenty-four SUREC participants, representing underrepresented and majority students alike, transferred to a 4YC to continue in geosciences or in a related STEM field within two-years of the URE. A strong cross-institutional collaboration that combined academic, financial, and mentoring support was key to enhancing transfer students’ URE experiences. Leveraging teaching and research expertise of 2YC adjuncts as emerging academics and educators was a hallmark of this program. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2021.2005510

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) aim to improve students' research skills, disciplinary knowledge, and career confidence. However, faculty mentors often lack formal training in effective mentoring practices. This study investigates the impact of professional development (PD) on faculty mentors in a physics REU program, focusing on communication and setting expectations, using a modified “Entering Mentoring” PD curriculum. A mixed-methods design explored three research questions: (1) What expectations do mentors establish, and how might they differ? (2) What realities do mentors experience, and how do expectations evolve? (3) What effect did PD have on mentoring, and how do interview and survey data converge to explain REU participant growth? Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with eight faculty mentors, post-program CIMER mentor surveys, and student surveys measuring their confidence in research abilities. Qualitative data were analyzed using constant comparative methods, while quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-tests to assess growth among two REU cohorts: one with mentor PD and one without. Results revealed that mentors faced challenges such as affording independence to mentees and selecting achievable research projects, regardless of experience. Despite these challenges, mentors focused on the research process, rather than the product, providing students with an authentic research experience. This approach led to significant perceived growth in students' general research skills, as reported by both mentors and mentees. Synthesis of qualitative and quantitative data showed that the PD program positively influenced mentoring practices and student outcomes. The 2024 PD-trained cohort showed statistically significant growth in research independence (Q24: d=0.86) and career confidence (Q49: d=0.62) compared to the non-PD 2023 cohort. This study emphasizes the importance of PD in improving mentoring practices and enhancing student growth, offering valuable insights for future REU programs.

Undergraduate research experiences have been supported by the National Science Foundation since the late 1980s in an effort to integrate research and learning and to encourage students to continue their education by pursuing graduate degrees. This paper adds to our understanding of whether undergraduate research experiences influence graduate school pursuit by examining survey responses from 61 industrial engineering alumni in three groups: those that worked as undergraduate research assistants, those who took an undergraduate research methods class, and a comparison group who graduated from the same bachelor's degree program but did not participate in either research opportunity. Results indicate similar levels of interest in graduate school from the comparison group and the research assistants with 71 to 75% of each group showing interest, while 100% of the alumni who took the research methods class have interest. When those with interest in graduate school were asked why, a small percentage of the responses were directly related to undergraduate research experiences, while a large percentage of responses related to encouragement from professors, friends or others, and desire for career advancement and professional growth.

The present study examined the reliability of student evaluations of summer undergraduate research experiences using the SURE (Survey of Undergraduate Research Experiences) and a follow-up survey disseminated 9 mo later. The survey further examines the hypothesis that undergraduate research enhances the educational experience of science undergraduates, attracts and retains talented students to careers in science, and acts as a pathway for minority students into science careers. Undergraduates participated in an online survey on the benefits of undergraduate research experiences. Participants indicated gains on 20 potential benefits and reported on career plans. Most of the participants began or continued to plan for postgraduate education in the sciences. A small group of students who discontinued their plans for postgraduate science education reported significantly lower gains than continuing students. Women and men reported similar levels of benefits and similar patterns of career plans. Undergraduate researchers from underrepresented groups reported higher learning gains than comparison students. The results replicated previously reported data from this survey. The follow-up survey indicated that students reported gains in independence, intrinsic motivation to learn, and active participation in courses taken after the summer undergraduate research experience.

Teaching advanced manufacturing through course-based undergraduate research in a vertically integrated projects (VIP) class