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Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) increase student access to research, providing opportunities for more students to engage with science practices and make novel science contributions. However, little is known about how to teach CUREs effectively. Effective CURE instruction relies on an instructor's knowledge of students, which is used to notice and respond to students as they conduct research. This study investigates CURE instructor knowledge of students that resulted from previous noticing when students experience research challenges. We surveyed a national sample of experienced CURE instructors about the challenges they have seen students experience that are distinctive to CUREs. Analysis from our deductive and inductive qualitative analysis of instructors’ knowledge of students indicated that they paid attention to student struggles in two main areas: nature of science and research as a practice. Instructor interpretations within these two areas provided nuanced insight into their knowledge of students’ knowledge, skills, and emotions across research challenges. Our results provide new insight into CURE instructor knowledge of students that was developed from noticing, which has implications for future research on CURE instruction and instructor professional development. 

Abstract Desired reforms in undergraduate education require shifts in departmental practices. Department heads are positioned to be change agents, but often lack formal leadership training, and their approaches to change have received little scholarly attention. Research findings from disciplines like organizational management can offer relevant insights. We drew on Kotter’s 8-step model for leading change as a theoretical lens for examining the ideas and actions of heads leading changes to departmental teaching evaluation practices. We used deductive and inductive qualitative content analysis to identify what was present and absent in the approaches taken by department heads. Department heads used some, but not all the steps in the 8-step model and prioritized additional actions. They sought faculty input to foster a sense of ownership in new practices and address concerns. Heads also proposed new changes strategically, worked with colleagues to develop new practices and build buy-in, and aimed to cultivate confidence about the feasibility of new practices. Compared to the 8-step model, heads did not foster a sense of urgency or intentionally craft messaging. Drawing on the collective wisdom of department heads and Kotter’s model, we present an adapted process for leading change in academic departments. The process recognizes the flat hierarchy of academic departments by including iterative steps of proposing, piloting, and revising new practices. It also highlights important steps that might not be the norm in departments, such as formulating careful messaging about the need for a change and repeatedly and intentionally broadcasting progress. 

Inadequate teaching evaluation practices undermine a department's ability to encourage, recognize, and reward effective teaching. Adopting more robust and equitable evaluation practices can address this, but faculty often worry their colleagues will resist such changes. We describe the development of the Teaching Evaluation Readiness Assessment (TERA), a survey to measure faculty readiness for reforming departmental teaching evaluation practices. The TERA is grounded in the readiness for change framework from organizational management, which stipulates components that contribute to productive engagement with an organizational change. This survey is designed to measure the extent to which faculty: (a) see value in teaching evaluation reform for themselves and their department, (b) feel their department would be capable of successfully changing teaching evaluation practices, and (c) perceive that their department head would be supportive of these changes. We used existing instruments, expert review, think-aloud interviews, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and comparisons across time and departments to develop the TERA and gather evidence of its validity as a measure of faculty readiness to change teaching evaluation. Findings suggest readiness for reform may be higher than what faculty and change agents perceived anecdotally. We discuss how the TERA can serve change agents and researchers. 

The global ocean is a profoundly important ecosystem that regulates Earth’s climate and is responsible for nearly half of the oxygen we breathe. Oceanographic concepts and marine microbial ecology are often excluded from undergraduate curricula despite their significance. Specifically, phytoplankton in the surface ocean fix atmospheric CO2 into organic molecules, which are released into the water where they serve as substrates for heterotrophic bacteria. Upon release, bacteria use transporter proteins to move these substrates across their membranes for metabolism inside their cells. However, the substrate preference and specificity of many microbial transporters in the ocean remains unknown. To address these curricular and scientific gaps, we developed the Ocean Genes course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE). In this five-session CURE lesson, students perform growth assays with a mutant library of the ecologically relevant marine bacterium Ruegeria pomeroyi DSS-3 on different carbon sources. The scientific goal of their investigation is to identify the substrate specificity of the bacterium’s 126 transporter genes, most of which remain uncharacterized despite their critical role in the food web that underpins global carbon cycles. Through this lesson, students develop their skills in interpreting scientific literature, performing microbiological techniques, analyzing data using relevant statistical tests, interpreting experimental results, and making arguments from evidence. This lesson aims to broaden engagement of undergraduate students with authentic marine science research. In doing so, the Ocean Genes CURE offers a novel avenue to increase diversity in the marine science and expand ocean literacy of undergraduate students. 

We relied on change theory to design a 3-year intervention with STEM department heads to provide space for busy heads to focus on research-based change in teaching evaluation practices. The impact on departmental practices was variable and department head readiness for change mattered. 

Abstract BackgroundStudying science identity has been useful for understanding students’ continuation in science-related education and career paths. Yet knowledge and theory related to science identity among students on the path to becoming a professional science researcher, such as students engaged in research at the undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, and graduate level, is still developing. It is not yet clear from existing science identity theory how particular science contexts, such as research training experiences, influence students’ science identities. Here we leverage existing science identity and professional identity theories to investigate how research training shapes science identity. We conducted a qualitative investigation of 30 early career researchers—undergraduates, postbaccalaureates, and doctoral students in a variety of natural science fields—to characterize how they recognized themselves as science researchers. ResultsEarly career researchers (ECRs) recognized themselves as either science students or science researchers, which they distinguished from being a career researcher. ECRs made judgments, which we refer to as “science identity assessments”, in the context of interconnected work-learning and identity-learning cycles. Work-learning cycles referred to ECRs’ conceptions of the work they did in their research training experience. ECRs weighed the extent to which they perceived the work they did in their research training to show authenticity, offer room for autonomy, and afford opportunities for epistemic involvement. Identity-learning cycles encompassed ECRs’ conceptions of science researchers. ECRs considered the roles they fill in their research training experiences and if these roles aligned with their perceptions of the tasks and traits of perceived researchers. ECRs’ identity-learning cycles were further shaped by recognition from others. ECRs spoke of how recognition from others embedded within their research training experiences and from others removed from their research training experiences influenced how they see themselves as science researchers. ConclusionsWe synthesized our findings to form a revised conceptual model of science researcher identity, which offers enhanced theoretical precision to study science identity in the future. We hypothesize relationships among constructs related to science identity and professional identity development that can be tested in further research. Our results also offer practical implications to foster the science researcher identity of ECRs. 

This study presents the development of a new measure of the mentoring that undergraduate researchers experience with evidence of seven distinct types of mentoring experience that are supportive or destructive in nature. 

Students’ beliefs about their abilities (called “lay theories”) affect their motivations, behaviors, and academic success. Lay theories include beliefs about the potential to improve intelligence (mindset), who (i.e., everyone or only some people) has the potential to be excellent in a field (universality), and whether reaching excellence in a field requires raw intellectual talent (brilliance). Research demonstrates that each of these beliefs influences students’ educational experiences and academic outcomes. However, it remains unclear whether they represent distinct latent constructs or are susceptible to the “jangle fallacy” (i.e., different names given to the same underlying construct). We conducted a multiphase, mixed-methods study to 1) evaluate whether mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs represent conceptually and empirically discriminable concepts, and 2) evaluate whether mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs contribute unique explanatory value for both psychosocial (e.g., sense of belonging) and academic outcomes (e.g., course grades). To address these questions, we developed and collected validity evidence for a new measure of science and math undergraduates’ lay theories, called the Undergraduate Lay Theories of Abilities (ULTrA) survey. Factor analyses suggest that mindset, brilliance, and universality are distinct and empirically discriminable constructs. Structural Equation Models indicate that each lay theory contributes unique predictive value to relevant outcomes.