Abstract
ABSTRACTCalls for early exposure of all undergraduates to research have led to the increased use and study of course-based research experiences (CREs). CREs have been shown to increase measures of persistence in the sciences, such as science identity, scientific self-efficacy, project ownership, scientific community values, and networking. However, implementing CREs can be challenging and resource-intensive. These barriers may be partly mitigated by the use of short-term CRE modules rather than semester- or year-long projects. One study has shown that a CRE module captures some of the known benefits of CREs as measured by the Persistence in the Sciences (PITS) survey. Here, we used this same survey to assess outcomes for introductory biology students who completed a semester of modular CREs based on faculty research at an R1 university. The results indicated levels of self-efficacy, science community values, and science identity similar to those previously reported for students in the Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) full-semester CRE. Scores for project ownership (content) were between previously reported traditional lab and CRE scores, while project ownership (emotion) and networking were similar to those of traditional labs. Our results suggest that modular CREs can lead to significant gains in student affect measures that have been linked to persistence in the sciences in other studies. Although gains were not as great in all measures as with a semester-long CRE, implementation of modular CREs may be more feasible and offers the added benefits of exposing students to diverse research fields and lab techniques.
Highlights
Multiple calls have been made to provide early exposure of undergraduate students to research experiences in order to increase retention in STEM fields [1,2,3]
As the three lab short-term research experiences (SREs) modules vary in their model systems, numbers of lab class periods devoted to them, lab techniques utilized, analyses conducted, and the levels of uniqueness expected for each group’s data, we explored whether students perceived differences in how each module contributed to their learning related to experimentation
We have implemented three different SREs based on faculty research in our department
Summary
Multiple calls have been made to provide early exposure of undergraduate students to research experiences in order to increase retention in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields [1,2,3]. These courses, termed course-based research experiences (CREs), have been shown to offer many of the same benefits of mentored research but on a broader, more accessible scale [2] For this reason, many institutions have been developing and implementing CREs for their students. Local CREs create a unique pipeline to involve undergraduates in apprenticed research at their home institution through exposure to faculty projects that may be immediately accessible to them Another important aspect of CRE models that may impact students’ experience is the length of the research experience, which can vary from a single lab period to multiple semesters. We used the PITS survey to measure changes in students’ self-efficacy, science identity, and science community values as well as their perceptions of ownership and networking and compared the outcomes for our modular CRE model to outcomes for the SEA-PHAGES project [20], which is a semester-long, national CRE. While the PITS survey measures only short-term outcomes for students, these measures have been shown to be correlated with longer-term gains in outcomes such as persistence [19]
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