CUREs - Design & Student Perceptions
Abstract
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) expose students to five dimensions of scientific research: scientific methods, the process of discovery, the impact of the research, the need for experimental iteration, and the importance of collaboration. However, it is unclear whether the design of lab-based activities and the perceived experiences of students reliably reflect these dimensions. To begin to address this issue, we created a dimension map of 53 CURE proposals that were generated in a workshop for international undergraduate instructors. We then collaborated with First Year Seminar courses at UC Davis to survey students about how their CURE experiences impacted their perceptions of the learning outcomes associated with the specific CURE dimensions. We found that instructors’ proposals emphasized scientific practices and the importance of the research over other CURE dimensions. Student perceptions of CURE dimensions also showed the most gain in “Scientific Practices” in pre- vs. post-course surveys, as well as an increased scientific belonging. The parallel gaps in CURE design and student perceptions of learning outcomes strongly suggest that careful attention should be given to CURE design in order to achieve maximal impact for students.
Keywords: CUREs, undergraduate research experiences, scientific practices, discovery, inquiry, collaboration, relevance, scientific belonging, iteration
Faculty-sponsored Research
The research of this article was supervised by Kenneth B. Kaplan, Ph.D. at the UC Davis Department of Cellular & Molecular Biology
Introduction
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are lab-based courses, in which students address relevant issues in biology by designing experiments in pursuit of novel findings. They differ from traditional “cookbook” lab courses as they involve students in the full range of activities that define “doing research” [1]. CUREs aim to increase undergraduate engagement with research in hopes of increasing retention rates in STEM majors and students’ sense of belonging in the greater scientific community [2], [3], [4], [5]. CUREs can help increase this number by making research accessible to a more diverse population of undergraduates early in their academic careers, including groups that fall into the category of non-traditional students [6], [7].
As defined by Auchincloss et al. (2014), CUREs incorporate five essential dimensions: scientific practices, collaboration, iteration, discovery, and broadly relevant work. The curriculum and process that students engage with in CUREs is supposed to represent the daily ways of thinking and operations of a researcher. Unlike more traditionally designed lab courses that focus on techniques, the questions posed in CUREs reflect broadly relevant problems that promote collaboration between students from diverse backgrounds and with widely varying experiences to apply scientific practices to inquiry and discovery-based approaches in an iterative manner [6], [7].
A variety of barriers can interfere with the delivery of CUREs. Higher education institutions may have limited resources to run a sufficient number of CUREs to provide equitable access [6]. There may also be a lack of training or instructor time to fully develop effective CUREs, resulting in an overemphasis on “cookbook” approaches [8], [9]. This can limit the promised benefits of CUREs, which include increased graduation rates, improvement in student GPA and increased interest in pursuing graduate education [1], [8], [9], [10]. Additionally, gaps in CURE design can limit student awareness of the learning objectives embedded in CUREs, especially since this type of research-intensive course is new to many [3], [6]. In order for CUREs to have the most meaningful impact on students, it is vital that the effectiveness of CURE design and student learning outcomes are carefully assessed. The purpose of this study is to analyze how CURE design and student perceptions of CURE learning objectives match CURE dimensions in order to identify gaps and create a more efficient framework for designing CUREs.
Methods
CURE Design Mapping
In 2021, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) hosted the “Bridging Research and Education Workshop”, in which a group of international, college-level instructors from primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) designed CURE-type modules (mCUREs). These proposals (n=53) were evaluated for their alignment with the five CURE dimensions.
Dimension | Learning Objective Indicators |
Scientific Practices | References to the scientific method, hypothesis formulation, and/or experimental design |
Collaboration | Inclusion of group projects such as papers, and posters in addition to group question formation, data collection, discussion, and outside group consultation. |
Iteration | Proposed repetition of experiments, data collection, and challenges to reproduce already published data or conduct follow-up experiments. |
Discovery | Formation of open-ended questions and the identification of a “gap” in the field’s understanding of a biological question |
Broadly relevant or important Work | Proposals that tied in questions outside the immediate field of biology being explored in the lab, including but not limited to issues surrounding diversity, scientific ethics, health, and disease and how the impact of this work would be communicated to a larger audience. |
To evaluate the mCURE proposals generated from the workshop, we identified descriptors that aligned with CURE dimension-specific learning objectives (Table 1). We first used a broad keyword search to identify learning objectives, then a more rigorous analysis to ensure the proposals explicitly matched the keywords to an identifiable learning objective.
Keyword searching enabled identification of common language used to describe course learning objectives, which allowed us to develop a more precise system to match these descriptors to CURE dimensions (Table 1).
Descriptors involving hypothesis and experimental design, quantitative reasoning, and oral, written, or visual communication assignments were mapped onto the “Scientific Practices” CURE dimension. Within experimental design, mention of reproducibility of tests or repetition of published experiments would support the “Iterative” CURE dimension. Similar mapping was used for the other CURE dimensions as seen in Table 1.
Student Perceptions
To address how students perceive the learning objectives designed to support CURE dimensions, a survey was presented and sent to three First Year Seminar CUREs taught in the winter quarter of 2023 at UC Davis. These CUREs were selected due to their focus on biological topics including cancer, plant stress, and mutant frogs.
The survey questions assessed student perceptions of whether their CURE experiences supported the learning objectives described in Table 1. Pre-course survey results were compared to a post-course survey. The pre-survey lacked questions regarding “broadly relevant or important work”, however, every other CURE dimension had a corresponding question set in both surveys, in addition to questions targeting scientific belonging (Table S1). The questions were given on a symmetric Likert Scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A brief presentation was given to each participating class to boost student engagement with the survey. The total number of students who responded varied between the pre and post-survey (21 and 11 respectively), out of a total of 39 students (53% and 28% response rate, pre- and post-survey, respectively).
Results
Learning objectives in CURE proposals
Dimension | % of Proposals that met dimension | Average % change in student response score between pre and post-survey |
Scientific Practices | 67.9 | 27.6 |
Collaboration | 41.5 | 6.1 |
Iteration | 9.4 | 1.2 |
Discovery | 57.2 | 3.9 |
Important Work | 62.3 | -* |
* Questions regarding important work were only included in post-survey
CUREs are specifically defined to include all five dimensions. To better understand how the mCURE proposals designed by a cohort of biological sciences instructors from PUIs align with published CURE dimensions, we developed descriptors that map onto each CURE dimension and we determined the frequency they were used in stated learning objectives from 53 proposals (Methods – CURE Design Mapping). Using this approach, we found that “Scientific Practices” and “Broadly relevant or important work” were most commonly reflected in the proposals. In contrast, the “Iteration” and “Collaboration” dimensions were least reflected in the proposals (Table 2). We conclude that, at least in this collection of mCURE modules, proposals reliably failed to reflect at least one and often more than one CURE dimension (>90% failed to include two or more dimensions). The majority of proposals (34%) only met 3 dimensions (Figure 2). The failure to explicitly represent the complete set of CURE dimensions in the design of CURE-based lab modules led us to ask whether students enrolled in CUREs would fail to identify learning outcomes associated with a similar subset of CURE dimensions by the end of the course.
Student Perceptions of CURE Dimensions
To investigate how students perceive the learning outcomes connected to CURE dimensions, we surveyed students in a limited number of CURE courses offered at UC Davis (METHODS – Student Perceptions ). The survey consisted of question sets for each CURE dimension as well as for “Scientific Belonging”-- though not explicitly a CURE dimension, it is a desired learning outcome [2]. Student responses for each set were averaged to give a single score for each dimension. The difference between the pre- and post-survey scores for each dimension was then used to calculate the change in student perceptions. A higher score indicated a higher perception of the given dimension by students.
Using the calculated change between the pre and post-survey questions, we found that two categories showed significant increases. The category “Scientific Practices” showed an approximate increase of 28% (Figure 3), possibly due to the implicit focus on techniques in any lab course (Discussion). An important learning outcome of CUREs is to reinforce students’ sense of “Scientific Belonging” [2]. We found this category significantly increased from pre- to post-survey responses (~28%; Figure 3).
In contrast to the increases from pre- and post-course surveys described above, we observed that the three remaining CURE dimensions, “Iteration”, “Collaboration” and “Discovery”, showed little to no change between pre-and post-survey scores (Figure 3).
We did not include pre-course survey questions around “Broadly relevant or important work”. However, our post-survey questions attempted to assess students' sense of the relevance of the questions they addressed in their CURE. Surprisingly, students reported a relatively low score on average when considering their work to have an impact on the scientific community (3.7), even though they found the work helpful to identify scientific issues important to their future goals (4.4). We conclude that students generally did not identify their CURE work with advancement in a scientific field (Discussion).
Our hypothesis predicted that those dimensions, not explicitly part of lab module design, would not be clearly perceived by CURE students. Consistent with our hypothesis, “Iteration” and “Collaboration” were the least met dimensions in CURE proposals, and also showed little change between the pre- and post-evaluations of student perceptions. We frequently found that “Scientific Practices” was one of the most commonly included dimensions by instructors in their proposals, and also exhibited the most growth in student perceptions. We conclude that there is a predictable relationship between CURE design and student perceptions of learning outcomes.
Discussion
This study confirms the relationship between CURE module (mCURE) design and the ability to successfully convey the learning goals derived from CURE dimensions to students. We found that in the proposed mCURE designs instructors focused more on learning objectives associated with traditional “cookbook” labs. The gaps in design matched a failure to observe an increase in student perceptions of defined learning outcomes. Despite gaps in design and student perceptions around specific CURE learning outcomes associated with the five dimensions, we found that students still experienced increased levels of scientific belonging after taking a CURE. Scientific belonging is a major objective of CUREs to increase STEM retention [3], [6], [7], [8]. This may suggest that CUREs can achieve impactful goals without meeting all five dimensions, however, other studies should examine this more closely and with larger groups of students and CUREs.
The gaps in CURE design and student perceptions would be better studied in a set of CURE proposals and their matched CURE. The number of CURE proposals that were analyzed was higher than the number of CUREs accessible to survey, and the number of enrolled students. At the time of this study, the proposals and designs for the surveyed CUREs were not available for analysis. For future studies of this nature, surveys should be given to the analyzed CURE proposals to more accurately describe the relationship between CURE designs and student outcomes.
We report on general trends by averaging scores from pre- and post-surveys as categories linked to CURE dimensions. However, due to the design of the survey, we were unable to match pre- and post-surveys to measure changes specific to individual students. Response tracking is important to understand individual learning experiences, which may reveal outliers and can be used for longer studies that follow students after graduation.
When assessing student perceptions of CURE dimensions, there were a limited number of CUREs available to survey. A major challenge in assessing student perceptions is student participation. The response rate decreased from the pre- to post-survey (53% to 28% response rate respectively) which may suggest that the timing within the quarter is an important factor to consider. A goal for future studies will be to find an approach to ensure robust response rates. A major long-term goal of this inquiry is to track changes in student perceptions before and after their CURE experience as well as their future academic and professional outcomes, and increasing student response rates is critical to achieving this goal.
Many instructors in the GSA cohort run small research groups where they emphasize training students in techniques and scientific practices. This may explain why many proposals drew more heavily from more traditional “cookbook” lab courses. While the majority of CURE proposals by college-level instructors meet the scientific practices and important work dimensions, most failed to include iteration or collaboration in their design, something that may reflect the trade-off in depth vs. breadth (i.e., iteration of one experiment vs. attempting more than one kind of experiment). Student responses also reflected a similar pattern, demonstrating higher perceptions of scientific practices, and lower perceptions of iteration, collaboration, and discovery.
Although student perceptions are an important measure of the learning objectives of CUREs, they do not fully capture the diverse benefits that CUREs offer including increased academic performance and self-efficacy [1], [8], [9], [10]. Although these effects can be measured while students are still enrolled as undergraduates, longer studies are required to determine the full impact of CUREs on STEM retention, including how feelings of scientific belonging gained in CUREs spans students’ careers post-graduation.
Conclusion
Our study sought to understand the relationship between instructor design of mCUREs and how that design aligns with student perceptions around accepted CURE learning outcomes.
Our analysis identifies CURE dimensions that are more challenging for research-trained faculty to incorporate into their lab designs. It also identifies areas that future workshops on CURE design should emphasize. CUREs can be very powerful tools to increase retention and a sense of belonging in STEM fields but require careful attention to design and an ability to assess how well design connects to learning outcomes.
About the Author: Mina Negahban
Mina is a class of 2023 Animal Biotechnology graduate. During her time at Davis she served on the board of the Biotechnology Club at UC Davis, where she enjoyed meeting others with similar interests, and supporting students’ academic and professional development. Mina is passionate about education, and this project has highlighted very important issues within the field that she plans to address in her future career interests in academia and biological research.
About the Author: Henna Kaur
Henna graduated from UC Davis in June of 2022 with a major in Genetics and Genomics. She chose to focus on this area of study due to her fascination with DNA and the code of life. Henna began working on this project with Mina and Dr. Kaplan in Fall of 2021 because of how impactful her own learning environments were at UC Davis. She wanted to gain further insight into what the student population at Davis was gaining from their classroom experiences, and hopes that after reading this piece, readers can recognize the value of having interactive and supportive learning environments in place. This past year, Henna has been working as a Medical Assistant, and plans to become a genetic counselor. As she continues to grow into her career as a healthcare professional, she is sure she will encounter many experiences where she will be in a mentoring or teaching role, and plans to utilize all she has learned from this research experience to contribute positively to all her future learning environments.
Authors' Note
We wrote this paper to summarize the findings of our research regarding CURE designs and learning outcomes. Our target audience is college-level instructors, who can use this information as critical factors for effective CURE design. Our hope is that this research and similar published work will motivate more UC Davis professors to propose and design CUREs in a way to maximize student learning outcomes and inspire students to pursue careers in STEM research.
Supporting Information
CURE Dimension | Pre-Survey Question | Post-Survey Question |
Practices
| I feel confident in my ability to develop a hypothesis and establish an experimental design to answer a proposed scientific question. | I feel confident in my ability to develop a hypothesis and establish an experimental design to answer a proposed scientific question. |
I feel confident in my ability to analyze and interpret data from scientific experiments. | I feel confident in my ability to analyze and interpret data from scientific experiments. | |
Collaboration | Based on my understanding of scientific research, collaborating with other scientists is critical for scientific advancement. | When conducting my research, I actively collaborated (i.e., sought advice from others in my research group) and communicated with others. |
Collaboration between scientists leads to increased accuracy of scientific findings. | Collaborating with my peers in this course made me more confident in the reliability of my results and conclusions. | |
| Iteration | Scientific advances arise from multiple researchers doing the same experiment. | Previous results in the field were critical for forming my research hypothesis and experimental predictions. |
Repeating and reproducing experiments is helpful in producing reliable data. | Being able to repeat experiments and/or data analysis made my conclusions more reliable. | |
The work I did in this class was an incremental step in furthering scientific knowledge. | ||
| Discovery | Forming open-ended questions is an essential part of being a scientist. | Engaging in research for this class helped me discover new scientific approaches to address important issues. |
Confirming that a technology works for a specific application (e.g., a medical device) is a critical part of doing scientific research | Answering open-ended questions in this course made me feel like a researcher. | |
| Broadly relevant or important Work | -* | My experience with research in this class has helped me identify scientific issues important to my future goals. |
-* | The research I participated in will have a significant impact on the scientific community. | |
| Scientific Belonging | I consider myself a scientist. | I consider myself a scientist. |
I have a sense of belonging to the scientific community. | I have a sense of belonging to the scientific community. | |
I intend to pursue scientific research in the future. | I will continue to pursue research in the future. | |
I have a sense of belonging to the community of scholars (i.e., professors, researchers, and students) at UC Davis. | I have a sense of belonging to the community of scholars (i.e., professors, researchers, and students) at UC Davis. | |
I feel a part of my major and/or field of study at UC Davis. | I feel a part of my major and/or field of study at UC Davis. | |
The relevance of the course topics made me feel like a researcher. | ||
The findings of my research project gave me a sense of personal achievement. | ||
I consider myself a researcher. |
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