Tiered Mentorship Experiences in Biomedical Engineering Programs: A Case Study of Collaborations between Undergraduates and High School Students

Abstract

Student engagement in STEM fields can occur through exposure to leading-edge research in the field of interest, researching or contributing to the research of others within the field, and communicating that research to others outside of the field. Mentorship is one way to help both students and mentors maintain engagement in these fields. Though some research exists about mentorship between professors and undergraduates, understanding of the relationship between undergraduates who mentor high school students in STEM fields is less developed. In an attempt to further explore the mentor relationships between undergraduates and high school students, this study reports on one aspect of a tiered-mentorship program within a biomedical engineering summer undergraduate research experience. Undergraduates in the biomedical engineering summer research experience and high school students in a summer engineering-themed enrichment program were linked for a week-long program-within-aprogram, whereby the undergraduates acted as temporary mentors to the high school students. In this program, the undergraduates communicated their summer research experiences and broader educational experiences to the high school students. This included presenting their research, guiding lab tours, modeling experiments, accompanying the high school students on a field trip to a topically-relevant museum and corporate site, and collaboratively creating learning activities about key topics in biomedical engineering. Finally, the undergraduates and high school students visited an area summer program for middle school students to present their activities and teach the middle school students about key topics in biomedical engineering. Three data sources were collected for this study, including semi-structured exit interviews and surveys administered to all of the undergraduates and a sample of volunteers from the high school students who participated in the collaborative program. Data was analyzed using the grounded theory methodology. When examining the nature of the interactions between the undergraduates and the high school students, two dominant themes emerged: (1) the “Influence of a Near-Peer”, and (2) Teaching and Learning. This study categorizes these themes and provides examples of evidence of the same. This collaboration and following study were the result of a combined effort between a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experience for Undergraduate program (the “REU Program” at a university in the Midwest) and a summer engineering-themed program for high school students entering 11th and 12th grade in the same city with combined sponsorship from a corporate partner and the same university (the “H.S. Program”). The National Science Foundation only provided funding for the REU Program, whereas the corporate partner and university jointly provided funding for the H.S. Program through an entirely separate grant. The H.S. Program provided the costs for transit, meals and admission tickets for parts of the collaboration between the REU Program and H.S. Program. The middle school program is a summer program for children in grades K-6 operated by a local part district. The middle school program voluntarily hosted the undergraduates and high school students as they presented their collaboratively-developed activities but provided no contribution to the cost of the collaborative program.