Impact of Undergraduate Research and Student Characteristics on Student Success Metrics at an Urban, Minority Serving, Commuter, Public Institution

Abstract

Challenges to establishing and maintaining undergraduate research programs include how to demonstrate impact as evidence for future funding, establish eligibility criteria when resources are limited, and assess new components. To address, undergraduate researcher GPA, credit accumulation and time to graduation were evaluated longitudinally, at an urban, public, minority and Hispanic serving, commuter college. Students who participated in undergraduate research and matched peers were also compared. Evaluation revealed that all groups benefited from participation in undergraduate research, whether they had full or part-time status, were STEM or non-STEM majors, or participated in single or multiple semesters of research. Addition of mandatory workshops after the fourth year of the seven years of students evaluated, correlated with longer participation in voluntary undergraduate research. Longer participation correlated with higher GPAs. Students who began research with no GPA, indicating that they were first-time freshmen or transfer students, were more likely to have low GPAs during the semester of participation, suggesting that a successful semester at the college before eligibility may be an evidence-based criteria to implement.

Institution-Wide Analysis of Academic Outcomes Associated with Participation in UGR: Comparison of Different Research Modalities at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

“…It is important to note that these results are not evidence of a lack of additional benefits from participation in research programs compared to research outside of structured programs. Others have reported higher benefits in the development of a variety of skills for URPs compared with URNPs (Bauer and Bennett 2003) and higher SCH earned for URPs who participate in additional program activities like workshops (Baron et al 2020), indicating that participation in structured research programs might offer benefits that are not directly captured by the metrics used in this study. In addition, one major benefit of UGR programs is that they typically offer financial support in the form of scholarships or stipends.…”

“…Studies on the benefits of undergraduate research (UGR) participation have uncovered important educational and professional development gains for undergraduate researchers, including career clarification (Craney et al 2011;Frederick et al 2021;Thiry, Laursen, and Hunter 2011;Zydney et al 2002), student motivation toward their courses (Lopatto 2007), increased student retention (Baron et al 2020;Fakayode et al 2014;Simmons 2018), increased GPA (Baron et al 2020;Brown et al 2020;Collins et al 2017;Fechheimer, Webber, and Kleiber 2011;Simmons 2018;Whittinghill et al 2019), protection against GPA decreases (Baron et al 2020;Brown et al 2020), increased graduation rates (Baron et al 2020;Galli and Bahamonde 2018;Hernandez et al 2018;Whittinghill et al 2019), increased interest in pursuing graduate degrees (Eagan et al 2013;Haeger and Fresquez 2016), increased likelihood of enrollment into graduate programs (Bauer and Bennett 2003;Carter, Mandell, and Maton 2009;Eagan et al 2013;Follmer et al 2017;Hathaway, Nagda, and Gregerman 2002;Hernandez et al 2018;Junge et al 2010;Maton et al , 2016Whittinghill et al 2019;Wilson et al 2018), and increased participation in the scientific workforce (Hernandez et al 2018). UGR participation has also been associated with increases in skills such as critical thinking (Thiry et al 2011;Zydney et al 2002), p...…”

“…Participation in UGR for URM students has been associated with persistence (Espinosa 2011;Simmons 2018), higher GPAs (Whittinghill et al 2019), higher likelihood of reporting plans to pursue graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; Eagan et al 2013), enrollment in further education (Hathaway et al 2002 Maton et al 2009Maton et al , 2016, entrance into science PhD programs (Whittinghill et al 2019), and continuation into (Hernandez et al 2018) and success in STEM careers (Martinez et al 2018). Although many studies have reported gains associated with participation in UGR for students from URMs, only a few studies have focused on Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) (Baron et al 2020;Brown et al 2020;Collins et al 2017;Loeser et al 2021;Simmons 2018) or on student populations with a high percentage of Latinx/Hispanic students (Estrada et al 2018;Hernandez et al 2018).…”

“…Efforts to investigate the benefits of UGR participation on a larger scale include institution-wide (Baron et al 2020;Collins et al 2017;Fechheimer et al 2011;Simmons 2018;Whittinghill et al 2019) and multi-institution (Estrada et al 2018;Hernandez et al 2018;Wilson et al 2018) studies that have examined the relationship between UGR participation and gains in several metrics. These studies showed that UGR participation was associated with student retention (Simmons 2018), increased GPA (Baron et al 2020;Collins et al 2017;Fechheimer et al 2011;Hernandez et al 2018;Simmons 2018), degree completion (Baron et al 2020;Hernandez et al 2018), enrollment in further education, and participation in the scientific workforce (Estrada et al 2018;Hernandez et al 2018). However, these studies did not distinguish between the different modalities of UGR experiences (i.e., structured program versus no program).…”

Impact of Undergraduate Research Experience Intensity on Measures of Student Success

“…Their findings suggested that 34 out of 38 students who participated in four or more semesters perceived research involvement as "extremely important" (p.154). Baron et al (2020) evaluated the impact of the length of participation in their Emerging Scholars program on semester GPA, semester credits earned, persistence and graduation. They found no statistical significance for GPA between those who completed a single versus multiple semesters.…”