Undergraduate Research Programs Build Skills for Diverse Students

While many professional societies, colleges, and universities offer undergraduate summer research experience (URE) programs for students, few have systematically evaluated their programs for impacts on the fellows. The American Physiological Society (APS) developed and administered multiple UREs wit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in physiology education 2021-06, Vol.45 (2), p.399-408
Main Authors: Bruthers, C. Brooke, Hedman, Emma L, Matyas, Marsha Lakes
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Career Planning
College students
Content Area Writing
Disproportionate Representation
Minority & ethnic groups
Minority Group Students
Multicultural education
Research Design
Research programs
Research Projects
Research Skills
Skill Development
Statistical analysis
Student Research
Teaching methods
Training
Undergraduate Students
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Summary:While many professional societies, colleges, and universities offer undergraduate summer research experience (URE) programs for students, few have systematically evaluated their programs for impacts on the fellows. The American Physiological Society (APS) developed and administered multiple UREs with varying target groups: students with and without prior research experiences and students from disadvantaged groups, including underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities (URM), persons with disabilities, first generation college students, and persons with financial or social disadvantages. Each program had specific goals and measurable objectives. To assess the impact of these programs, APS both documented student completion of program tasks (e.g., designing experiments, analyzing data, writing abstracts) and developed reliable and valid survey instruments to quantify students' self-ratings on a variety of research and career planning skills related to the program objectives. Results indicate that fellows as a whole and for most individual programs gained skills and knowledge in numerous areas: experimental design, data management, lab safety, statistical analysis, data presentation, scientific writing, scientific presentation, professional networking, professional networking at scientific meetings, authorship attribution, animal use in research, human subjects in research, roles of lab mates and mentors, and research career training and planning. Furthermore, there were few differences within the diversity comparison groups (women vs. men, URM fellows vs. non-URM fellows, etc.). Suggestions for improvement of URE programs are proposed.
ISSN:1043-4046
1522-1229
DOI:10.1152/advan.00165.2020