Student Responses to Undergraduate Research Experiences and Research-like Courses David Lopatto Grinnell College

The Survey of Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE) is a survey for undergraduates who have recently completed a summer undergraduate research experience. Introductory information about the survey may be found at A nonfunctional copy used for inspecting the questions on the survey is at The SURE survey

The SURE academic year survey The SURE II survey for academic year experiences is a survey for undergraduates who have recently completed an academic year research experience. If the student indicates that he or she has had both summer and academic year experiences, a set of questions will be available to permit the student to compare the two experiences. The SURE IIay may be found at A nonfunctional copy used for inspecting the questions on the survey is at

The CURE survey The Classroom Undergraduate Research Experience survey may be used as a pretest-posttest or posttest only survey to measure student experiences in “research like” or other science courses. Pretest questions include: Demographic questions Reasons for taking the course Level of experience on various course elements Science attitude questions Learning style questions

Estimate of learning gains in the course elements Estimates of learning benefits that parallel questions in the SURE surveys Overall evaluation of the experience Science attitude questions The posttest survey is parallel to the pretest. Questions include

What kind of information do the surveys yield? The following slides illustrate the kind of information we can get from the SURE survey. The SURE ay survey is similar. Thanks to Gabriella Farkas for creation of the next 3 slides.

Reported Learning Gains from Research Experience Overall means Changes FORChanges AWAY 1. Understanding of the research process 2. Readiness for more demanding research 3.Understanding how scientists work on real problems 4. Learning lab techniques 5. Tolerance for obstacles 6. Learning to work independently Mean Values Scale:

Reported Learning Gains from Research Experience Overall means Changes FORChanges AWAY Mean Values Scale: Skill in interpretation of results 8. Ability to analyze data 9. Understanding how knowledge is constructed 10. Becoming part of the learning community 11. Ability to integrate theory and practice 12. Understanding primary literature 13. Assertions require supporting evidence

Reported Learning Gains from Research Experience Mean Values Scale: 1-5 Overall means Changes FORChanges AWAY 14. Understanding science 15. Understanding how scientists think 16. Self-Confidence 17. Clarification of a career path 18. Skill in oral presentation 19. Skill in science writing 20. Learning ethical conduct

The CURE survey permits comparisons to the SURE data. A faculty course elements form tells us something about the activities emphasized in the course, permitting a classification of courses that are more or less “research-like”.

The CURE survey

Food for thought: Student names are confidential. In the CURE survey, the response rate per course was not large. Course data were not reported. The surveys require the help of an on-campus liaison to urge students to fill out the surveys. /