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

Abstract

Most studies on the benefits of participation in undergraduate research (UGR) use data from student participants in undergraduate research programs (URPs), which offer a limited number of positions. In reality, however, the majority of UGR students participate in undergraduate research not in programs (URNPs). The authors conducted an institution-wide study at a Hispanic-serving institution to examine the relationship between academic success and participation in these two UGR modalities. Although there were some differences between URPs and URNPs, participation in research at this institution was largely equitable and inclusive, with UGR demographics that reflected those of the institution, and it was positively associated with increased benefits along multiple academic metrics, regardless of UGR modality. Importantly, these increases were observed for both first time in college and transfer students.

Factors and mediators impacting the number of undergraduate research mentees at a research-intensive Hispanic-serving institution

“…In general, men have higher odds of mentoring undergraduates and slightly lower odds of mentoring graduate students than female mentors. This is an interesting effect to observe considering that female faculty had more favorable beliefs about the benefits of undergraduate mentoring than male faculty [9]. The college of the faculty mentor also influences the number, with engineering faculty clearly favoring graduate student mentees and science and liberal arts favoring undergraduate mentees.…”

“…Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) are increasingly valued as high impact experiential educational activities that have broad and long-standing positive impacts on college students [1,2]. Participation in UREs, whether situated in a structured program or not, are known to increase students' research self-efficacy, science identity and impact graduate school enrollment [3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Additionally, faculty members who have been part of a URE are motivated to engage with undergraduate students and highly value these mentoring opportunities for a variety of professional and personal reasons [10].…”

Impact of Undergraduate Research Experience Intensity on Measures of Student Success

“…Additionally, most of these studies have focused solely on STEM students (Haeger et al, 2020). Battaglia et al, (2022) looked at the effect on the type of UGR experience on different metrics, however it was mostly STEM focused and did not factor in semesters involved. Furthermore, the few studies measuring UGR impact empirically have not factored in the possible effect of research experience intensity.…”