Biology Education Research & Myself
My work as a biology education researcher is relevant to me, as I have friends and family in STEM that struggle to obtain research experiences. This is due to a number of things I've observed, including lack of guidance, cost of time and money, and lack of opportunities. As well as being relevant to me personally, I've gained a lot of skills and experiences from my time in the lab. I've had the opportunity to present our work at lab meetings, co-present at a national conference with my team, and I'm an author on the papers that will be published about our work. I've also gained experience mentoring other undergraduates in the lab, as well as receive mentorship from both Dr. Shortlidge as well as the graduate students in the lab. Overall I'm extremely grateful for my experience as an undergraduate researcher in the Shortlidge Biology Education Research Lab, and hope that our work contributes to making these experiences more accessible to other students.
Why is this important?
The National Center for Education Statistics released a report in the late 2000's stating that 48% of students pursuing a bachelor's degree in STEM left the field. About half of these students switched to a non-stem major, and the rest left college without completing a degree or certificate of any kind. This means that about half of the incoming STEM population never persisted in their pursuit of a STEM degree. This report called for reform in undergraduate STEM education, and it also recognized the lack of diversity in STEM. One thing this field addresses is creating a more equitable environment for STEM students. The report also called out the lack of research experience among graduating STEM students. Research experiences are required after graduation in STEM for many PhD programs, masters programs, and most jobs. Undergraduate research experiences are typically unpaid, which makes them very difficult for working students who can't afford to take time to volunteer. These research experiences are also time consuming, which takes time away from studying. Aside from money and time, research experiences are difficult to obtain, as there are few available. Typically, students must reach out to professors with the hope they have room in their lab for a volunteer, and often times they don't. There are hundreds to thousands of students at universities seeking research experiences, but faculty can really only take on a handful of students each year.
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs)
One thing the field has done to make research more accessible to students is implement course-based undergraduate research experiences, or "CUREs". CUREs serve as a replacement for the traditional "cookie cutter" introductory labs that are often required of undergraduates in STEM. "Cookie cutter" labs refer to those in which students show up each week, perform an experiment with a known outcome, then write a report and move onto the next week, never looking back at previous experiments. CUREs contrast this by creating an environment more similar to research, where students are seeking unknown answers and building off of previous experiments. There are five components that define a CURE, as stated in the literature. This includes scientific practices (like the use of lab equipment and protocols), iteration (repeating experiments when they fail, building off of previous weeks' work, building off of others' work), collaboration (working with a partner as well as being encouraged to work with the rest of the class), and two other constructs that really set CUREs apart from typical lab experiences. These are novel discovery and broader relevance. With novel discovery, students are attempting to discover something previously unknown to the scientific community. With broader relevance, the students are doing work that is relevant to the scientific community, outside of their classroom. A lot of research in the field looks at the experiences of students as well as faculty teaching CUREs, but realistically those teaching CUREs at most institutions are actually graduate teaching assistants, rather than faculty. My work in the lab studies the experiences of students as well as graduate teaching assistants in a CURE implemented at a large research intensive university in the PNW.