Research Initiation Grant: Defining Success for Undergraduate Research Experiences by Non-Elite Engineering Students

University Of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee WI

Investigators

Abstract

Participation in undergraduate research has often been presented as a mechanism to improve student retention in a discipline and as a means to inspire more students to pursue graduate studies. Past studies have concentrated on studying the effects of undergraduate research experiences (UREs) on high-achieving students ? but these students are already likely to graduate and are more likely to pursue graduate studies. Because non-elite students are often at risk for leaving engineering programs and are less likely to pursue graduate studies than high-achieving students, the proposed project begins a study of the benefits of participation in UREs for ?average? engineering students with respect to their educational and professional development. The primary focus of this research initiation project is developing definitions of success for different types of students, with categories determined through classification of the academic and personal background of the students. Following the determination of the definitions, a pilot study involving a representative fraction of undergraduate students who participate in engineering research activities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) is to be conducted to confirm the appropriateness of the definitions of success. The intellectual merit of this work is that it expands the study of the benefits of UREs to average engineering students ? a population of students that it is important to nurture through to graduation in order to increase the number of engineers produced in the United States. By determining appropriate definitions of success of URE participation for a wide range of students and then testing the definitions in a pilot study, this project begins to determine if increasing URE participation to a larger percentage of engineering students is useful and appropriate. Furthermore, this project begins to identify the elements of a URE that are most beneficial for different groups of students. The broader impact of this work is the potential to significantly influence the future directions of research experiences of undergraduate engineering students. By determining different expectations for various types of students and research programs, this project provides engineering educators with realistic expectations of undergraduate research on the education and preparation of future engineers.