2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Undergraduate research aims to foster transformative learning, but one key element of this experiential learning–reflection1–can be difficult to integrate into the programs. As with any intensive learning activity (such as study abroad)2, it doesn't happen automatically. Yet NSF’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs do require a process that might serve as a tool for doing this work: program evaluation. In a previous paper we explored the possibility of using evaluation as a tool to collect valuable research data about the experience of marginalized and minoritized students.3 In this paper we ask if we can design evaluation methods to do three things: evaluate, provide research data, and encourage student learning through reflection. It seems worthwhile to try, both to make multi-purpose research more efficient and to make student participation in these evaluations beneficial for them, rather than simply subjecting them to data privacy risks. This paper raises this question, situates it in existing theories and frameworks of reflective learning and metacognition, and offers suggestive data of the effects of evaluation methods on students from a two-year evaluation and study of an undergraduate research program. We wonder if a reflection-focused evaluation process could help students connect their learning with their sociotechnical experiences of working in a research group. The reflection questions we asked, drawn from the Views of Nature of Science instrument4 call attention to the social aspects of research, such as how researchers choose research questions and methods, how they interpret data to propose theories, why multiple theories can co-exist based on the same data, etc. Reflecting on the realities of how people do research, both in students’ expectations and assumptions (a pre-interview) and in their own experience of working in a research group (a post-interview), may be a powerful way to help students recognize engineering research as a sociotechnical endeavor.

1. Passarelli, A. M., & Kolb, D. A. (2012). Using Experiential Learning Theory to Promote Student Learning and Development in Programs of Education Abroad. In M. Vande Berg, R. M. Paige, & K. H. Lou (Eds.), Student learning abroad: What our students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it (pp. 137–161). Stylus Publishing, LLC.
2. Wayland, K. A. (2015). From reverse culture shock to global competency: Helping education abroad students learn from the shock of the return home. 2015 ASEE Annual Conference, Seattle, WA. https://peer.asee.org/24142
3. Wylie, C., Wayland, K., & Wang, A. (2024). REU program evaluation: A valuable tool for studying undergraduate socialization in engineering. 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, 47947. https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--47947
4. Lederman, N. G., Abd-El-Khalick, F., Bell, R. L., & Schwartz, R. S. (2002). Views of Nature of Science questionnaire: Toward valid and meaningful assessment of learners’ conceptions of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(6), 497–521. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.10034