The Moderating Effect of Faculty Mentorship on Undergraduate Students' Summer Research Outcomes

Summer undergraduate research experience (SURE) programs are proven interventions that provide undergraduate students with opportunities to develop research skills under the mentorship of a faculty member. These are essential programs, particularly for members of underrepresented minorities, because...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:CBE life sciences education 2020-12, Vol.19 (4), p.ar56-ar56
Main Authors: Monarrez, Angelica, Morales, Danielle, Echegoyen, Lourdes E, Seira, Diego, Wagler, Amy E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomedical Research - education
Biomedicine
Conferences (Gatherings)
Faculty
General s and
Humans
Medical Research
Mentors
Outcomes of Education
Public Speaking
Research Projects
Research Training
Self Efficacy
Student Characteristics
Student Research
Students - statistics & numerical data
Summer Programs
Teacher Influence
Undergraduate Students
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Summary:Summer undergraduate research experience (SURE) programs are proven interventions that provide undergraduate students with opportunities to develop research skills under the mentorship of a faculty member. These are essential programs, particularly for members of underrepresented minorities, because SUREs are known to broaden their participation and increase retention. We present the results of a study investigating the influence of faculty mentorship quality on the quality of research presentations for undergraduate students attending a 10-week, distributed, multi-institutional SURE program focused on biomedical research training. Upon returning to the home institution, students presented research posters at a local symposium. Poster presentations were judged using a scale validated as part of this project. Combining collected information on student demographics and their self-reported assessments of research gains and belonging to the scientific community, we made use of data analytics methodologies to appropriately merge and analyze the data to address the overarching research question: What are the independent and combined effects of the quality of faculty mentorship and student characteristics on the quality of SURE student poster presentations? Results show that faculty mentor quality functions as a moderating influence for student characteristics on research presentation quality. Implications and recommendations for SURE program implementation are discussed.
ISSN:1931-7913
1931-7913
DOI:10.1187/cbe.20-04-0081