This Work in Progress (WIP) paper describes the addition of an introductory research course to an established summer bridge program to further enhance student success in engineering. Two widely used interventions to improve student retention and graduation rates for underrepresented students are summer bridge programs for incoming first year students and undergraduate research opportunities. Summer bridge programs provide an opportunity for students to gain/hone their academic success strategies, prior to entering their first year, and develop community/belonging within their discipline. These factors lead to increased student retention and graduation rates, in particular for students from historically underrepresented groups. Whereas the benefits of undergraduate research opportunities include additional mentoring relationships with faculty as well as enhanced communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills. This paper presents a model for combining these two interventions by exposing summer bridge participants at The Pennsylvania State University to concepts and opportunities of undergraduate research through an embedded course during the 6-week bridge program.
Open to all students, with the goal of increasing retention of historically underrepresented groups in engineering, the summer bridge program is a 6-week experience that includes several courses to help incoming first year students transition to the rigors of college. Participants engage in a metacognition course focused on enhancing their learning strategies, a chemistry preparation course and either a pre-calculus or calculus preparation course. Additionally, they compete in a 6-week robotics competition where they learn to advance their team building and problem-solving skills. Participants also become acclimated to college life, schedule fall courses as a cohort, learn new professional development skills, engage in group study sessions, and are immersed in enrichment opportunities. The pilot “Intro to Research” course was added to the summer bridge curriculum as an individual class that met for an hour twice per week. Specific goals of the class included: introducing the students to the benefits of trying research as an undergraduate student, promoting critical thinking skills, exposing students to a variety of research projects at the institution, and connecting students to faculty and staff who could help them find research opportunities. Classroom activities emphasized inquiry-based learning methods that address open-ended problems in research to enhance student success by increasing their tolerance with uncertainty. We hypothesize that our pilot Intro to Research course will increase interest and self-efficacy in research activities, thereby enhancing the probability that students will participate in voluntary research experiences, and as a result enhance student retention and graduation rates. A key component of our pilot was the use of student mentors who highlighted pathways for involvement in research, participated in guided discussions of the opportunities and benefits of research involvement, and provided student perspectives of benefits. Student mentors also helped integrate research methods and mentality with a robotics competition that all summer bridge students participated in.
To assess the initial impact of this pilot dual intervention program, we used pre- and post-course surveys with questions using a 5-point Likert scale to measure self-confidence, self-efficacy and sense of belonging. Each student also provided weekly video reflections to describe experiences that impacted their learning, attitudes/perspectives, and preparation habits. Specific prompts included questions about learning processes, challenges, and relationships and connections. Summer bridge participants will also be followed throughout their undergraduate tenure to evaluate annual outcomes (e.g., GPAs, retention in an engineering discipline, number of undergraduate research experiences). Initial analyses of the survey results show a positive shift over the course of the summer in students’ academic confidence and sense of belonging. The mode for student responses regarding their ability to recover and/or learn from setbacks, mistakes or failures showed a dramatic improvement to a self-description of “extremely well” by the end of the summer program. Although most students entered the program with some interest in trying research as an undergraduate student, there was a noted increase in their confidence in finding research opportunities. This intentional exposure and training on research experiences provides a unique model for enhancing student retention that would provide an opportunity for scalability to affect a broad set of students in the future. We anticipate enhancing awareness of research opportunities at the beginning of their engineering studies will help address equity gaps for students from historically underrepresented groups.
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