[Okgrantsmanship] UR survey for your comment

Thu Feb 28 10:01:53 CST 2008

Linda Mason, Ed.D.
Coordinator for Grant Writing and External Funding
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education
655 Research Parkway, Suite 200
Oklahoma City, OK 73104
405-225-9486
lmason at osrhe.edu
IP: 164.58.250.178
-----Original Message-----
From: Council for Undergraduate Research Subscription List
[mailto:CURL-L at kookaburra1.jmu.edu] On Behalf Of Thomas J. Wenzel
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:21 AM
To: CURL-L at kookaburra1.JMU.EDU
Subject: Fwd: UR survey for your comment

For those of you interested in studies aimed at assessing the value of  
undergraduate research, you might want to participate in the  
initiative described in this message.

Tom Wenzel
Bates College

----- Forwarded message from Anne-barrie.Hunter at Colorado.EDU -----
     Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:31:37 -0700
     From: Anne-Barrie Hunter <Anne-barrie.Hunter at Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: Anne-Barrie Hunter <Anne-barrie.Hunter at Colorado.EDU>
  Subject: UR survey for your comment
       To: jbennett at udel.edu, kwbauer at uga.edu, sgreger at umich.edu,  
selgin at wustl.edu, richard.foust at nau.edu, susan.russell at sri.com,  
twenzel at bates.edu, mlcrowe at uncg.edu

Dear Colleagues,

Since the time several of us met together at the TexasTech conference in
Lubbock, TX, in 2006, we at Ethnography & Evaluation Research have been
working to develop an effective online evaluation instrument for
undergraduate research (UR) programs in the sciences.

As a panel of experts, if you care to offer suggestions for increasing
the usefullness of the instrument for UR program directors, we would be
glad of your comments. In addition, below, is a letter that explains the
use of the URSSA survey as a program evaluation instrument and that
solicits your willingness to participate in more widely testing the
current version of the instrument with groups of students who have done
undergraduate research in the sciences (this letter is also attached,
should you wish to send it to others who may be interested).

Here is a url to view and sample the URSSA survey online (this is how
students would experience taking the survey):

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=BV4lwVPlFuT2aw_2bXPhWisw_3d_3d

You will also find attached a pdf file of the survey, should you wish to
view a hardcopy of the instrument.

Please do let me know your interest in working with us to test the URSSA
survey!

Most sincerely,
Anne-Barrie Hunter

February 25, 2008

Dear Colleague,

We seek your assistance in pilot-testing a new survey instrument, which
we call URSSA: Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment. Your
participation will help us to refine the instrument and check its
validity for a range of students and research settings.

The goal of URSSA is to enable departments and programs to gather
information for themselves about what students do or do not gain from
participating in undergraduate research (UR) in the sciences, and about
what activities contribute to those gains. Such data can be used to make
improvements to UR programs and to gather evidence about their
effectiveness for institutions, funders, and other stakeholders. To
protect the anonymity of student answers, URSSA is used only for student
groups of 10 or more who participate in science research through their
departments or in organized programs. Likewise, because of the small
numbers of students in any single faculty member's UR program, URSSA
responses should not be used to judge faculty UR performance.

Our research team, Ethnography & Evaluation Research, at the University
of Colorado, includes myself, Tim Weston, Sandra Laursen, Heather Thiry,
and Elaine Seymour. The URSSA survey items are based on the gains we
have identified in a large interview study of student and faculty UR
participants (1-4) and in a comprehensive comparison of these findings
with other published research and evaluation studies (5-21). The items,
grounded in our research findings, have been tested and refined in a
series of think-aloud interviews. A set of core (i.e., fixed) items
measures students' gains from UR and probes general processes by which
these are achieved. Program directors or departmental UR administrators
will also be able to select from a menu of optional items to examine the
impact of specific program elements. In this current version of the
instrument, all optional program activity questions are included for
testing purposes. To administer the survey, students are sent a web link
for the survey and may complete it at their convenience; it typically
takes about 10 minutes.

We now seek a larger pool of student responses to improve survey items
and check their validity. Thus we ask you to assist us by administering
URSSA to your student UR participants. We are seeking both summer and
academic-year UR students across a range of formal and informal programs
and a variety of campus settings. Ultimately, URSSA will become a part
of the SALG online collection of instruments
(http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/salgains/instructor/), soon to be updated *
<#_ftn1>; at present, the pilot version of URSSA is available via
SurveyMonkey. We can supply you a URL to send your students, or we can
communicate directly with your students if you supply a list of e-mail
addresses. Survey responses will come directly to us but results will be
shared with you when they are complete. Individual student responses are
anonymous, confidential, and protected under IRB approval from our
campus Human Research Committee.

Please let me know of your interest in participating. I will need to
know your institutional or program context for UR, the approximate
number of students participating in your program(s), and a suggested
calendar period (10-14 days) in which the survey can be administered,
near the end of the academic year or summer UR program.

We greatly appreciate your assistance in shaping the research-grounded
URSSA instrument into a useful, flexible, and nationally validated tool
for evaluating UR programs. We recognize that you may currently use
other instruments, and we would be glad to speak with you about
comparing URSSA results with your existing instruments. Please contact
me with any questions, and thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Anne-Barrie Hunter

Co-director and Senior PRA
Ethnography & Evaluation Research
University of Colorado, Boulder
UCB 580
Boulder, CO 80309-0580

abhunter at colorado.edu
303-735-0887

   References Cited

(1) Hunter, A.-B., Seymour, E., & Laursen, S.L. (In press.) Benefits of
participating in undergraduate research in science: Comparing faculty
and student perceptions. In /To Think and Act Like a Scientist:
Undergraduate Research Experiences and Their Effects/, Roman Taraban and
Richard Blanton, Eds. Teachers College Press: NY, NY.

(2) Hunter, A.-B., Laursen, S.L., and Seymour, E. (2006). Becoming a
scientist: The role of undergraduate research in students' cognitive,
personal, and professional development. /Science Education, 91/(1):
36-74.

(3) Laursen, S.L., Hunter, A.-B., Seymour, E. and DeAntoni, T. (2006)
"Undergraduate research: Not just for scientists anymore." Chapter 6,
/Handbook of College Science Teaching/, Mintzes, J.J. & Leonard, W.H.,
Eds. National Science Teachers Association, Arlington, VA.

(4) Seymour, E., Hunter, A.-B., Laursen, S.L., and DeAntoni, T. (2004).
Establishing the benefits of research experiences for undergraduates:
First findings from a three-year study. /Science Education/, 88:
493-534.

(5) Adhikari, N., & Nolan, D. (2002). "But what good came of it at
last?": How to assess the value of undergraduate research. /Notices of
the AMS, 49/(10): 1252-1257.

(6) Alexander, B.B., Lyons, L., Pasch, J.E., & Patterson, J. (1996,
June). /Team approach in the first research experience for
undergraduates in botany/zoology 152: Evaluation report/. Madison, WI:
University of Wisconsin-Madison, LEAD Center.

(7) Alexander, B.B., Foertsch, J.A., & Daffinrud, S. (1998, July). /The
Spend a Summer with a Scientist program: An evaluation of program
outcomes and the essential elements of success/. Madison, WI: University
of Madison-Wisconsin, LEAD Center.

(8) Barlow, A., & Villarejo, M. (2004). Making a difference for
minorities: Evaluation of an educational enrichment program. /Journal of
Research in Science Teaching, 41/(9): 861-881.

(9) Bauer, K.W., & Bennett, J.S. (2003). Alumni perceptions used to
assess undergraduate research experience. /The Journal of Higher
Education, 74/(2): 210-230.

(10) Fitzsimmons, S.J., Carlson, K., Kerpelman, L.C., & Stoner, D.
(1990, March). /A preliminary evaluation of the research experiences of
the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program of the
National Science Foundation/ (Center for Science and Technology Policy
Studies). Washington, DC: ABT Associates, Inc.

(11) Foertsch, J.A., Alexander, B.B., & Penberthy, D.L. (1997, June).
/Evaluation of the UW-Madison's summer undergraduate research programs:
Final report/. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin-Madison, LEAD
Center.

(12) Hathaway, R., Nagda, B., & Gregerman, S. (2002). The relationship
of undergraduate research participation to graduate and professional
educational pursuit: An empirical study. /Journal of College Student
Development, 43/(5): 614-631.

(13) Kardash, C.M. (2000). Evaluation of an undergraduate research
experience: Perceptions of undergraduate interns and their faculty
mentors. /Journal of Educational Psychology, 92/(1): 191-201.

(14) Kremmer, J.F., & Bringle, R.G. (1990). The effects of an intensive
research experience on the careers of talented undergraduates. /Journal
of Research and Development in Education, 24/(1): 1-5.

(15) Lopatto, David. (2004). Survey of Undergraduate Research
Experiences (SURE): First findings. /Cell Biology Education, 3/:
270-277.

(16) Nagda, B.A., Gregerman, S.R., Jonides, J., von Hippel, W., &
Lerner, J.S. (1998). Undergraduate student-faculty research partnerships
affect student retention. /The Review of Higher Education, 22/(1):
55-72.

(17) Rauckhorst, W.H. (2001, July)./ Measuring the impact of the
undergraduate research experience on student intellectual development/.
Paper presented at Project Kaleidoscope Summer Institute, Snowbird, UT.

(18) Russell, S. H. (2005, November). /Evaluation of NSF support for
Undergraduate Research Opportunities: Survey of STEM graduates/.
Contributors C. Ailes, M. Hancock, J. McCullough, J. D. Roessner, and C.
Storey. (Draft Final Report to the NSF.) Menlo Park, CA: SRI
International. Retrieved 2/19/06 from
http://www.sri.com/policy/csted/reports/.

(19) Ryder, J., Leach, J., & Driver, R. (1999). Undergraduate science
students' images of science. /Journal of Research in Science Teaching,
36/: 331-346.

(20) Ward, C., Bennett, J., & Bauer, K. (2002) Content analysis of
undergraduate research student evaluations. Retrieved March 2005, from
http://www.udel.edu/RAIRE.

(21) Zydney, A., Bennett, J., Shahid, A., & Bauer, K. (2002b). Faculty
perspectives regarding the undergraduate research experience in science
and engineering. /Journal of Engineering Education, 91/(3): 291-297.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

* <#_ftnref1> If you are interested in seeing a SALG course evaluation,
once at the the SALG website, click on "enter as a guest" and then on
"see examples."

-- 
Co-director and Senior PRA
Ethnography & Evaluation Research
University of Colorado, Boulder
UCB 580
Boulder, CO 80309-0580
303-735-0887 (wk)
303-492-2154 (FAX)

----- End forwarded message -----

Thomas J. Wenzel
Department of Chemistry
Bates college
Lewiston, me  04240
Phone: (207) 786-6296
Fax:  (207) 786-8336
Email:  twenzel at bates.edu
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