Undergraduate Research in a Fully Online Engineering Program: Effects on Retention, Persistence, Performance, STEM attitudes and Identity

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This project aims to serve the national interest by developing a framework for providing undergraduate research opportunities to students enrolled in online STEM programs. Specifically, the research team will design and test the impact of undergraduate research experiences for students in an online engineering program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The acute, longstanding need for increased numbers of well-prepared STEM graduates has driven the proliferation of online degree programs in undergraduate engineering and technology. These distance-learning programs have the potential to increase accessibility of STEM programs to diverse students, and thus support the growing demand for graduates with STEM skills. However, many online programs have low retention and graduation rates. The value of undergraduate research experiences for supporting student persistence and success is well documented for in-person learners. The goal of this project is to provide online students with undergraduate research experiences, anticipating that the experiences will have similar effects for online learners. To do so, it will develop a tailored framework that features broad research topics, increases student disciplinary knowledge and skills, and provides key supports to improve students’ academic performance, persistence, and graduation. It is expected that these outcomes will correlate with positive impacts of research experiences on the students’ attitudes toward STEM and STEM identity. The project will design, implement, and test an undergraduate research pilot program within an online engineering program at the University. Project activities include the creation of a research-oriented workshop series, addition of an elective research track, and specialized mentoring of the research students. The project will conduct a mixed-methods research study to investigate the effectiveness of the framework, the impact of the framework on students’ STEM identity and attitude toward STEM, and other research questions. The key deliverable will be a sharable, customizable, scalable framework for providing research experiences in online courses and degree programs. It is expected that the work will produce insights about online student participation, a key area of research given the COVID-19-induced pivot to online learning. It is possible that this project can debunk stereotypes about the feasibility of incorporating undergraduate research and supporting development of a strong STEM identity in distance learning environments. This project is supported by the NSF IUSE: EHR Program, which supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.