Transforming the STEM Learning Experience: Minority Students’ Agency in Shaping Their Own Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research

An interdisciplinary undergraduate research program with international summer fieldwork at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles trains undergraduates in research methodologies (cancer laboratory techniques, crosscultural survey research, and policy analysis); collects fieldwork data in global settings and the United States; and compares, analyzes, and presents the results at professional conferences and in publications. The program develops leadership skills and teamwork necessary for student success and retention in STEM fields. Participants learn about the molecular, environmental, and nutritional causes of cancer and about local and policy-level disparities in health-care access in the United States and globally. This combination of coursework, summer research, international field study, and leadership training can be an effective way to increase success and retention rates of undergraduate women in STEM fields.

For 50 years, Smith College’s Summer Research Fellowship (SURF) has provided undergraduate women scientists the opportunity for an immersive experience to conduct independent research under the mentorship of science faculty and staff. This article highlights summative assessment data on SURF program outcomes as well as the institutional planning and responses that followed from careful consideration of SURF’s success and challenges. SURF participation was associated with a full range of student benefits, including a higher overall college gradepoint average, greater advanced research participation, and increased likelihood of completing an advanced degree. Evidence of these powerful and lasting student impacts associated with the SURF program was integral to divisional strategic planning within the sciences and helped propel curricular innovation broadly, creating faculty and institutional investments in a broad range of cuttingedge pedagogical approaches that are student-centered and inquiry-driven.

Drexel University piloted the Students Tackling Advanced Research Internationally (iSTAR) Scholars Program, which provides undergraduates with an opportunity to engage in an international experience at a collaborating institution during the summer between their first and second years. Based on outcomes from a modified version of the Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA) tool, the authors found that undergraduates engaged in international research experiences self-report making at least equivalent gains to students engaged in domestic research experiences and significantly higher gains in several areas such as developing patience with research, writing reports, conducting observations, and calibrating instruments. Students engaged in international experiences also self-report more comfort in working with diverse populations.

This article presents the results of an investigation into undergraduate students’ perceptions of the influences of their mentored research experiences on their identity development. Data from a 2015 survey were analyzed using summative and inductive approaches. The results indicated that participants had access to multiple opportunities for mentored undergraduate research. Second, participants identified a constellation of mentor types that facilitated students’ initial and long-term engagement in undergraduate research experiences. The inductive analysis of openended responses uncovered five categories of elements identified by participants as influencing their identity shifts and three domains of students’ perceived identity shifts: disciplinary/professional, academic/researcher, and personal/cultural. The findings extend the literature related to outcomes of mentored undergraduate research and suggest a need for additional investigations into mentoring models that accommodate arrays of mentors and identity shifts associated with mentored undergraduate research.

To determine the logistics, benefits, and challenges of developing and implementing an international undergraduate research network, the authors analyzed the Matariki Undergraduate Research Network (MURN). MURN attempted to connect undergraduate students from four countries across two years, with 21 and 23 students respectively. Using mixed methods, the authors explored faculty and student experiences of MURN. Although MURN worked well at the local level, it had limited success at a global level. Teaching across time zones and academic-year differences posed the biggest challenges. Students and faculty reported a range of benefits typical of engagement with undergraduate research but noted weak international connections. A credit-bearing program with partners in similar time zones and academic-year systems, as well as a requirement for collaborative projects across institutions, are recommended.

The authors discuss a course-based undergraduate research (UR) experience in business, seeking to continue a conversation initiated by Miller and DeLoach (2016) regarding undergraduate research in professional fields. The current state of liberal arts colleges and business education is described, as are the three modes of thinking developed by students during their UR participation. The authors also discuss lessons learned and provide insights into the components needed to support a course-based UR experience in other settings.

Many undergraduate research capstones require research papers that include a literature review. This study assessed whether modifications made to teaching of a literature review resulted in significant changes to quantified measures of assessment. Literature reviews in the final economics capstone research papers of 212 students from the 2005–2016 period were examined. Results showed that a mandatory graded requirement of incorporating a summary first paragraph was significantly more effective than recommending that students write this paragraph. There was a statistically significant increase associated with both the number of references and total number of paragraphs with a minimum of two scholarly citations. Results demonstrated the general effectiveness of continuous updating of assignments and activities based on student feedback and instructor experience.