HHMI REC Program

Assessment Plan

Program Undergraduate Participant Goals:

  • Improve research identity.
  • Improve research agency.
  • Improve comfort level relative to specific research skills and tasks.
  • Strengthen perceptions of how research fits with career goals.
  • Create pathways to more advanced undergraduate student research engagement.
  • Strengthen inclusive and supportive connections between undergraduate and graduate researchers.

Program Graduate Project Leader Goals:

  • Strengthen knowledge and skills related to mentoring undergraduate students.
  • Introduce graduate students to undergraduate research pedagogy.
  • Train graduate students to be more inclusive and supportive in their engagements with undergraduate students.

Assessment Methodology:

Undergraduate Pre and Post Survey, not anonymous.  UNM REC utilizes a PRE and POST survey adapted by the UNM ECURE program to measure changes in (1) research identity, (2) research efficacy/agency, (3) comfort level with specific research skills and tasks, and (4) confidence level in degree/major choice.  By using a survey instrument that is not anonymous, we are able to measure actual changes over the course of the project for individual students.  This tool makes use of a seven-point Likert scale on most questions and does not collect qualitative data.  This survey is administered before the project begins, and then again after the project concludes.

Undergraduate End-of-Project Questionnaire, anonymous.  UNM REC utilizes an anonymous questionnaire to collect student perceptions about (1) how research fits into their career goals, (2) perceptions of inclusion and support during their REC participation, (3) how REC participation changed their perceptions of research and/or their chosen degree program, and (4) recommendations for improving the REC program.  This tool makes use of open-ended questions and is anonymous to encourage students to be as candid as possible.

Graduate Student End-of-Project Questionnaire, not anonymous.  UNM REC uses a non-anonymous questionnaire to collect the perceptions of graduate project leaders regarding: (1) how the summer training did and/or did not prepare them for engaging with undergraduate students using inclusive and supportive research pedagogy, (2) gaps in their knowledge and instructional skills that should be addressed in future years, (3) changes they perceived in their undergraduate students over the course of their project, (4) how REC participation has impacted professional goals, and (4) what recommendations they would make for improving the REC program.

Next-year follow-up survey, not anonymous.  UNM REC utilizes a next-year survey to determine whether (1) students engaged in more advanced research opportunities after completing their REC project, (2) if so, whether the concepts and skills they learned from REC were helpful in finding and/or participating in these engagements, and (3) whether the relationships they made through REC (with the graduate project leader and/or their peer undergraduates) were helpful in finding and/or participating in these engagements.  This survey is not anonymous, in order to allow us to contact individual students requesting more detail as needed.

Individual Undergraduate Student Data:

While it is unlikely that one short-term research engagement will have a statistically significant impact on university degree persistence, retention, or graduation, it is important that we measure these variables in order to identify emerging trends.  Specifically, we track the following variables, collected from the Banner Student Information System:

  • Next semester return-or-graduate.
  • Next semester STEM degree persistence.
  • Eventual STEM degree graduation.

Since comparing these variables to the UNM general undergraduate population would not provide apples-to-apples analyses, we will instead compare each student to a similar non-REC population.  To create these comparison populations, we will utilize the following variables: race/ethnicity, gender, major (or major cluster), and number of undergraduate credits completed (based on defined ranges).

Since the number of undergraduate students participating in REC is relatively small, we will be able to create a comparison population for each participant.