Innovations for Implementing and Sustaining Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences Across STEM Curricula at a Community College

The project aims to serve the national interest by engaging two-year college students in undergraduate research experiences (UREs) that build on the strength of the community college educational context. Participation in authentic UREs increases student pursuit of careers and postgraduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

These experiences also increase the likelihood that students will seek further academic and professional opportunities to conduct research. This project builds on existing UREs at the college that have been implemented for a small number of students and aims to expand these opportunities for the larger STEM student population. Building on current institutional strength and innovation, this Track 2 project will integrate course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) into STEM classroom curricula designed to foster student success, knowledge of STEM, persistence, and completion.

This approach expands opportunities and provides an inclusive model that has the potential to better support two-year college students. This initiative will develop variable-length CUREs and implement extensive professional development for faculty, instructors, and support staff. To facilitate and incorporate student feedback into the project, the project team will establish a STEM Student Trainers and Advisors for Research (STEM STARS) Task Force.

To address the gap in the literature on CUREs, specifically in the community college settings, a mixed methods study, modeled after an investigation conducted at a four-year institution, will assess the impact of CUREs on student learning, attitudinal outcomes, and efficacy. An additional contribution of this study will be its examination of the opportunities and barriers associated with sustaining variable-length CUREs at two-year institutions.

To increase the relevancy of the project, it is designed to contribute to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education's Master Plan to increase credential attainment in STEM.

The project's overarching goal is to foster undergraduate research experiences in STEM at two-year institutions, with the additional aim of sustaining the curricular innovation. The objectives of project are to (1) create a CURE Project Task Force that involves faculty/instructors, students, laboratory prep personnel and other support staff; (2) develop data-driven multiple variable-length CURE and establish a repository of materials that will contain revised CURE-based curricula, training resources, and course materials to support face-to-face, hybrid, and remote synchronous instruction; (3) train 60 faculty, 6 lab prep personnel, 6-15 tutors, and 4-8 advisors; (4) implement variable-length CURES in course and labs in biology; (5) develop and implement CUREs into 3 non-biology courses: (6) assess student success associated with participation in CUREs; and (7) evaluate faculty and staff outcomes, such as comfort, confidence, and ability in implementing CUREs.

The mixed methods study will assess expected student and faculty outcomes and the opportunities for sustaining CUREs at two-year institutions. Findings and lessons learned have the potential to propagate CUREs at other two-year institutions that support student success and increase student knowledge, persistence, and completion. The NSF IUSE: Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education (ITYC) Program seeks to accelerate the impact and advance knowledge about emerging and evidence-based practices in undergraduate STEM education of two-year colleges.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.