RAPID: Instructional Shifts in Response to COVID-19 and Their Impacts on Classroom-based Undergraduate Research Experiences

以课程为基础的本科生研究经历（CURES）大大扩大了学生在学术生涯早期参与真实研究的机会。 研究参与与学生对STEM的坚持有关，特别是对于来自STEM代表性不足的群体的学生。 因此，通过增加有研究经验的学生的数量和多样性，治愈也扩大了对STEM职业的参与。 治愈通常让学生团队在实验室或现场动手工作。 随着COVID-19病毒的爆发，全国CURE教育格局迅速急剧转变为完全“在线”模式，提前规划的机会有限。 因此，这种情况提供了一个独特而紧迫的机会，探索如何在新的在线环境中发展，以及他们是否继续实现核心CURE教育目标。 它还允许评估这些快速课程变化是否对所有学生都有公平的结果，包括第一代学生，经济援助学生和来自不同社会经济背景的学生。 如果CURE是吸引大量早期本科生参与真实STEM研究的解决方案，那么必须知道在线翻译CURE的可行性。 重要的是要了解这些新的在线CURE的结构，在什么情况下它们是有效的，以及它们使谁受益。 该项目的结果有可能扩大对CURE教学方法和成果的理解，为从业者和研究人员。 此外，这一意外的在线课程转变是一个机会，吸引更广泛的高等教育受众对课程配置，在线效率，支持和在线教学的障碍的新思维。该项目的目的是双重的：1）捕捉和分析如何CURE课程活动迅速转化为在线格式; 2）评估课程变化对不同人口统计学特征的学生的影响。 它将提供早期证据来回答CURE的好处是否、如何以及为什么通过不同的在线教学方式实现。 重要的是，这个项目不会对在线CURE或在线教学的质量做出结论;相反，它将探索哪些CURE活动可以随时在线交付，如何交付，学生如何回应，以及这种新的教学方式如何改变/扩展教师对CURE的看法。 本项目将采用混合方法设计，以两个样本跟踪CURE课程的在线实施情况。 第一个样本将包括一组不同的本地CURE，这些CURE跨越多个STEM部门，并具有一系列课程目标/结构。 这一系列的CURE将提供一个深入的，定性的案例研究调查，将捕捉和分析教师的思想，计划和产品，之前，期间和之后的转变，从动手，基于实验室的CURE，现在突然在线。 第二个样本将包括来自全国网络的CURE课程，这将使我们能够更广泛地以更量化的方式探索大量教师如何过渡到在线。 该项目还将研究由此产生的情绪，动机和学生在这一过渡期间的经验，以及如何本学期的学生成绩与往年相比，通过分析历史的学生成绩数据库。 这种方法将提供广泛的覆盖面和比较一组相对同质的CURE，因为在这个网络中的所有CURE教师都受过相同的研究方法，有类似的课程目标，并使用类似的材料。 该奖项由本科教育部（教育和人力资源局）的改进本科STEM教育计划颁发，使用冠状病毒援助，救济和经济安全（CARES）法案的资金。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) greatly expand opportunities for students to participate in authentic research early in their academic career. Research participation is linked to increased student persistence in STEM, especially for students from groups that are underrepresented in STEM. Thus, by increasing the number and diversity of students who have a research experience, CURES also broaden participation in STEM careers. CURES typically engage student teams in hands-on work in laboratories or field sites. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, the national CURE education landscape quickly and dramatically changed to a fully “online” mode, with limited opportunity for advance planning. Thus, this situation presents a unique and urgent opportunity to explore how CUREs evolve in a new online environment, as well as whether they continue to achieve core CURE educational goals. It also allows for assessment of whether these rapid course changes have equitable outcomes for all students, including first-generation students, students on financial aid, and from different socioeconomic backgrounds. If CUREs are a solution for engaging large numbers of early-stage undergraduates in authentic STEM research, then the feasibility to translate CUREs online must be known. It is important to understand the structure of these newly online CUREs, in what situation they are effective, and who they benefit. The results of this project have the potential to expand understanding of CURE instructional approaches and outcomes, for both practitioners and researchers. Additionally, this unexpected shift to online coursework is an opportunity to engage broader higher education audiences in new thinking about course configuration, online effectiveness, and supports and barriers for online teaching.The purpose of this project is twofold: 1) capture and analyze how CURE course activities are rapidly translated into online formats; and 2) assess effects of course changes on students with different demographic profiles. It will provide early evidence to answer if, how, and why CURE benefits are realized through the different modality of online teaching. Importantly, this project will not make conclusions about the quality of online CUREs or online teaching overall; instead, it will explore which CURE activities can be readily delivered online, how they get delivered, how students respond, and how this new way of teaching changes/expands how instructors think about CUREs. The present project will use a mixed-methods design to track online implementation of CURE courses in two samples. The first sample will include a diverse set of local CUREs that span multiple STEM departments and have an array of course objectives/structures. This collection of CUREs will afford an in-depth, qualitative case study investigation that will capture and analyze instructors’ thinking, plans, and products, before, during, and after the shift from hands-on, laboratory-based CUREs to ones that are now abruptly online. The second sample will include CURE courses from a national network, which will allow us to explore more broadly and in a more quantitative way, how a large number of instructors transitioned to online. The project will also examine the resulting emotions, motivations, and experiences of students during this transition and how this semester’s student outcomes compare to those from prior years, through analysis of a historical student outcomes database. This approach will provide broad reach and comparison among a relatively homogenous set of CUREs, since all CURE instructors in this network are trained in the same research approach, have similar course objectives, and use similar materials. This RAPID award is made by the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program in the Division of Undergraduate Education (Education and Human Resources Directorate), using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.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.