Factors influencing participants' selection of individual REU sites

Abstract

This study seeks to elucidate factors influencing undergraduate engineering student intent to participate in research assistantships offered through National Science Foundation (NSF) research experiences for undergraduates (REU) site programs. Understanding participant decision criteria could increase targeting of specific student populations, improve program outcomes, and increase efficiency of site directors. This ongoing study builds off previous work by the NSF [1] on REU programs to answer the following questions: (1) are participant selection criteria uniform for all STEM REU programs or do they vary by program primary discipline, (2) do additional factors not previously considered, such as geography and other offers they receive, significantly impact REU selection, and (3) do factors significantly vary by each successive student cohort. To collect data, a survey was sent to REU participants through nine participating National Science Foundation (NSF) site administrators. Geographic distributions of applications were classified based on distance and spread with respect to hometown and indicated applicant divisions. Initial results showed that twenty five percent of these participants were offered multiple positions and seven percent of respondents declined another offer before accepting their current position.