Peer Mentoring Develops Undergraduate Career Goals in a Community of Research Teams

Abstract

An undergraduate research program structured as a community of faculty-mentored, student-led teams can overcome the barrier of limited faculty mentoring time and dramatically increase the number of research opportunities available to students. The present work aimed to examine how different types of mentoring interactions within a community of tiered teams might affect undergraduate decisions to pursue a research career. Survey data were collected from a diverse population of undergraduates participating in a large team-based research community program (n = 200). Logistic models showed that the time spent with mentors relative to the time spent with a research team predicted undergraduate career goal change. This study also demonstrates how the relative levels of student mentoring that occur in a team community setting can be optimized to minimize faculty mentoring time and increase the probability of undergraduate career goal change.