Research Initiation Grant: Defining Success for Undergraduate Research Experiences by Non-Elite Engineering Students

参与本科生的研究通常被认为是提高学生在某一学科中的留校率的一种机制，也是激励更多学生攻读研究生课程的一种手段。过去的研究主要集中在研究本科研究经历（UREs）对优秀学生的影响。但这些学生已经很有可能毕业，而且更有可能继续研究生学习。由于非精英学生往往面临着离开工程专业的风险，而且与成绩优异的学生相比，他们攻读研究生的可能性更小，因此，拟议中的项目开始了一项研究，研究参加工程专业的好处。工程专业学生的教育和专业发展。这项研究启动项目的主要重点是为不同类型的学生制定成功的定义，通过对学生的学术和个人背景进行分类来确定类别。在定义确定之后，将进行一项试点研究，涉及威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校（UWM）参加工程研究活动的本科生的代表性部分，以确认成功定义的适当性。这项工作的智力价值在于，它将UREs的好处的研究扩展到普通的工程专业学生。为了增加美国工程师的数量，培养这群学生直到毕业是很重要的。通过为广泛的学生确定URE参与成功的适当定义，然后在试点研究中测试这些定义，该项目开始确定将URE参与增加到更大比例的工程专业学生是否有用和适当。此外，该项目开始确定对不同学生群体最有益的URE元素。这项工作的更广泛的影响是有可能显著影响本科工程学生的研究经验的未来方向。通过确定对不同类型的学生和研究项目的不同期望，该项目为工程教育者提供了对未来工程师教育和准备的本科研究的现实期望。

Participation in undergraduate research has often been presented as a mechanism to improve student retention in a discipline and as a means to inspire more students to pursue graduate studies. Past studies have concentrated on studying the effects of undergraduate research experiences (UREs) on high-achieving students ? but these students are already likely to graduate and are more likely to pursue graduate studies. Because non-elite students are often at risk for leaving engineering programs and are less likely to pursue graduate studies than high-achieving students, the proposed project begins a study of the benefits of participation in UREs for ?average? engineering students with respect to their educational and professional development. The primary focus of this research initiation project is developing definitions of success for different types of students, with categories determined through classification of the academic and personal background of the students. Following the determination of the definitions, a pilot study involving a representative fraction of undergraduate students who participate in engineering research activities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) is to be conducted to confirm the appropriateness of the definitions of success.The intellectual merit of this work is that it expands the study of the benefits of UREs to average engineering students ? a population of students that it is important to nurture through to graduation in order to increase the number of engineers produced in the United States. By determining appropriate definitions of success of URE participation for a wide range of students and then testing the definitions in a pilot study, this project begins to determine if increasing URE participation to a larger percentage of engineering students is useful and appropriate. Furthermore, this project begins to identify the elements of a URE that are most beneficial for different groups of students. The broader impact of this work is the potential to significantly influence the future directions of research experiences of undergraduate engineering students. By determining different expectations for various types of students and research programs, this project provides engineering educators with realistic expectations of undergraduate research on the education and preparation of future engineers.