Effects of course‐based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) on wildlife students

Abstract

A new movement to develop course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) is emerging, although the benefits of such programs have not yet been fully evaluated. We examined effects of a field-based CURE project on science attitudes, career choice, and perceived knowledge of undergraduate wildlife students (n ¼ 32) at the University of Wyoming in 2012. In this project, junior and senior students gained practical experience, used their own data to learn various modeling approaches, and disseminated results orally and in written form. We used a mixed-method study with pre-and postactivity surveys and focus group interviews to evaluate the change in student perceptions. Our results illustrate that participation in the CURE project resulted in benefits similar to those reported from traditional undergraduate research experience programs. Participants reported increased understanding of the scientific method, clarification of their career choices, and greater confidence in their perceived knowledge of science. These changes were more pronounced among male participants. Concurrently students gained valuable skills that are required by practicing wildlife biologists. Based on these results it appears that adoption of CURE projects in similar natural resources programs could provide a large number of undergraduate students with equivalent opportunities to those currently experienced by a select few through traditional undergraduate research experience programs. Ó 2017 The Wildlife Society.

Incorporating research into the undergraduate wildlife management curriculum

“…Benefits observed in other CURE projects (Elgin et al, 2016;Flaherty et al, 2017;Kerr & Yan, 2016;Sarmah et al, 2016) were also present in this study. In addition to successfully integrating a bird observation study into an existing course as a research experience, students improved their perceived confidence in general study design and data organization, partially supporting our first prediction.…”

“…It will be important to incorporate more than one measure to identify changes in perceptions and provide direct evidence of student outcomes (Corwin et al, 2015). In addition, the lack of control in this study did not provide the support we needed to reflect the true perceptions and interests that may exist with wildlife-minded undergraduates (Flaherty et al, 2017). It is difficult to accomplish this and increase our sample size at our institution due to the small student cohort in the program, only one course section available, and the risk of double responses from the same individuals since many of the same students take other wildlife courses in the same semester.…”

“…Furthermore, the process of testing hypotheses had the least improvement in self-perceived ability in various science process skills from the beginning to the end of a research experience (Kardash, 2000). Flaherty et al (2017) argued that intimidation of designing and conducting their own project may impact student perceptions. Only 68% of the students reported having conducted their own research following project completion, although this was the intention to begin with.…”

“…Survey responses did not affect student grades. All students in the course were required to conduct a research project as part of their participation grade as suggested by Flaherty et al (2017) in order to increase participation and motivation. Over the next 2 weeks, lectures and in-field or lab exercises were given on the topics of bird identification and survey meth-ods, research and experimental design, and general project requirements.…”

“…Previous literature has provided models and recommendations such as the backward design and the course‐based undergraduate research experience (CURE) logic model to cope with these barriers and highlights the potential benefits to students and faculty of this type of approach (Auchincloss et al., 2014; Bakshi, Patrick, & Wischusen, 2016; Cooper, Soneral, & Brownell, 2017; Corwin, Graham, & Dolan, 2015). Calls for reform in undergraduate biology education have pushed for what is known as CUREs (Auchincloss et al., 2014; Bangera & Brownell, 2014; Cooper et al., 2017; Corwin et al., 2015; Flaherty, Walker, Forrester, & Ben‐David, 2017). Research experiences like CUREs have been utilized to emphasize the value of research in undergraduate courses while applying an experiential and active‐learning approach.…”