Effects of Faculty Mentorship Quality on Undergraduate Students' Summer Research Outcomes

Abstract

Summer research programs (SRPs) are a widely used intervention for improving inclusion in STEM research tracks and are particularly important for recruiting and retaining underrepresented minority (UM) students (Ghee, Keels, Collins, Neal-Spence, & Baker, 2016; Pender, Marcotte, Sto. Domingo, & Maton, 2010). A core -element of SRPs is the use of faculty mentorship to assist undergraduate students in developing a strong science identity, research self-efficacy, and to create an authentic research experience for all participating students. However, it is not clear whether and how the quality of faculty mentorship affects the quality of SRPs students’ research. Therefore, in this study, we investigate the relationship between student-reported faculty mentorship quality, measured by the Mentoring Competency Assessment (MCA) score and judges’ ratings of the students’ scientific poster presentations at a summer research symposium. Specifically, we make use of modern data analytic methods to filter over 250 measured characteristics of students. We then use a subset of these indicators to build predictive models of students’ research quality scores. Once we obtain well-fitting predictive models, we analyze the parameter estimates to assess the practical significance of the selected factors related to research quality. Overall, the results of this study provide evidence of a strong positive relationship between the quality of faculty mentorship and the quality of SRPs students’ research, even when controlling for student characteristics known to affect research outcomes, such as science identity and self-efficacy. We also identify interactions between the MCA score and other student characteristics that have practical implications for institutions running SRPs with UM students. We additionally provide evidence about the construct validity of a proposed research quality scale. This study confirms a long-held, but untested belief, that effective faculty mentors produce higher functioning future STEM researchers, and provides additional evidence for a sustained focus on implementing culturally responsive mentor trainings at institutions that offer SRPs to UM students. Speaker bio:Dr. Angelica Monarrez Postdoctoral Fellow at the NIH-Funded BUILDing scholars at the University of Texas at El Paso. She earned a Ph.D. in Teaching, Learning and Culture with a concentration in STEM education and a masters in statistics from the University of Texas at El Paso. She is particularly interested in investigating ways to broaden participation of Latinx students in STEM higher education, especially those that are first generation college students and are emergent bilinguals by looking at issues of equity and inclusion. She is recently implementing student programs and interpreting qualitative and quantitative data results produced through the training interventions in the program. In addition, she coordinates the peer mentoring program and the summer research program, which looks at ways to recruit and retain students in STEM fields. She has co-authored several peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters. She has also presented at several prestigious international conferences such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and Psychology of Mathematics Education North American Chapter (PME-NA) for which she has been a member for over five years.