Characterization of STEM Undergraduate Research Experiences and Student Outcomes

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This project aims to serve the national interest by investigating how participation in undergraduate research, particularly during the academic-year, can benefit STEM students. Undergraduate research plays an important role in showing students the scientific research process and inspiring students to pursue STEM-related careers. The focus of this project is students' academic-year research at primarily undergraduate institutions. The project seeks to expand current understanding, through social science research methods, of how the benefits of undergraduate research are achieved. This effort connects to the NSF’s mission to broaden access to and encourage participation in STEM-related activities among diverse student populations. Intended outcomes of the project are a blueprint and toolkit to help STEM instructors design successful undergraduate research experiences. The novelty of this project lies in the integration of well-established social science research with education research, where the former is focused on understanding how different aspects of work design influence motivation and the latter relates to STEM Undergraduate Research Experiences (UREs). Adopting a job characteristics theory lens, the primary goals are to develop and validate a multi-dimensional indirect URE-modified measure of the work-design structure. These goals will be accomplished by first adapting an established work-design measure from the domain of organizational psychology to the STEM URE context. The measure will be adapted through an iterative process of subject matter expert interviews. From the earliest stages of the project, bilingual participants will be included in the interview process to ensure the instrument functions reliably across linguistically diverse groups. This new measure will be used along with a survey of self-reported STEM-critical student outcomes (e.g., science identity, design thinking, data literacy) for relational assessment. The results from this project will be disseminated broadly via conferences, peer-reviewed academic journals, and science blogs. Creative Commons will be leveraged to facilitate wider access and an informational website will also be developed to disseminate the results from this project. This project will add new knowledge about the structure of UREs, what aspects of URE structure are most likely to generate critical student outcomes, and URE design insights to accelerate the motivational, attitudinal, and behavioral potential of diverse student populations. The NSF IUSE:EHR Program 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.