Structure, Duration & Intensity

Short or long? Course-based, internship or intensive Summer URE? When, how, where to meet?

Undergraduate research experiences can come in many forms, including internships, jobs, formal mentoring programs or specially designed classes (commonly referred to as Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences or CUREs). Each of these formats have benefits and drawbacks, providing differing levels of hands-on experience and student support, and well as unique challenges and barriers to participation.

The standard summer URE is typically short in duration (one term) and high intensity (full time). This requires students to put their lives on hold, and can be a large barrier to participation for those with caretaking or work responsibilities. Many non-traditional students are not able to participate in undergraduate research experiences for this reason.

How we did it:

ARC-Learn did not fit neatly within a category of undergraduate research experience. The program was offered over the course of two years (six terms on the quarter system). Students were expected to enroll for the program each term, either as a one-credit “course” or as a non-credit transcript notation option. Credits counted toward the experiential education requirements of our college, allowing students to meet degree requirements through their participation in ARC-Learn. Students were issued a modest stipend each term to offset costs of participating in the program, such as family care or time off to participate in meetings.

Once every-other-week, students met for a two-hour cohort meeting. These meetings were used to manage the logistical aspects of the program, work on team-building activities and share information necessary for students to make progress on their projects. Each meeting was recorded and posted on our course learning management system. Attendance at these meetings was best supported by providing clear shared expectations.

The “off-weeks” were intended to be used by research teams to work together on projects. Depending on the point in the process and each team’s needs, this could look like a team meeting, individual meetings with mentors or work sessions. This varied widely by team, based on many factors, including mentor and student availability and accountability, group dynamics and clarity of expectation.

ARC-Learn was designed as a two-year, low intensity program to allow students to fully participate in the entire arc of a research project, while also maintaining other academic and personal commitments. While this low intensity model was successful in allowing students to focus on other important aspects of their lives, it also became an accountability challenge. Students balanced many responsibilities over the course of two years, and ARC-learn sometimes ended up as the lowest-stakes priority. Mentors also faced challenges in engaging students at the subject depth necessary to support them in this type of program over a two-year timeframe. Unfortunately, some students (and mentors) were unable to finish the program, mostly due to life events and competing priorities.

Considerations for your program:

Elements of CUREs can be very helpful, especially in teaching research-related concepts to those who may be new to the research world. Elements of the internship model are also useful, particularly in providing the one-on-one support that comes with mentorship.

Provide stipends, course credits or other incentives that students can use in their academic and personal lives to support their participation in the program. This also has the dual purpose of providing accountability to students, which can be a challenge in a longer-duration program.

Set clear expectations about what the program is, what is required for participation, and what students can expect to accomplish. In a long-duration, low stakes, lower structure program, benchmarks are important to keep students accountable and motivated. Consider requiring students to complete a project milestone each term to keep them on track to finish the program, as well as tangible products such as a research proposal, paper and poster.

Program duration also has implications for student skill development—a longer program may afford students time to learn about the whole research arc and new skills (like coding or data cleaning) whereas a shorter program may need to be more targeted (e.g,. focus on a few pieces of the research arc) and may have more prerequisites (for example, students may need to come into the program with more foundation skills/knowledge).

A two-year program is likely too long in duration and slightly too low in intensity to support accountability and student/mentor retention. With a two-credit course, students would be expected to attend a cohort meeting every week, and to make more rapid progress on their projects. This would likely improve student accountability and provide a little clearer structure and expectations.