Lessons Learned from a Chemical Engineering REU: The Importance of Training Graduate Students Who are Supervising REU Students

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs have been shown to promote positive outcomes such as increased interest in graduate school and STEM careers for their participants. Research has also shown how graduate students benefit from mentoring undergraduate researchers—namely they receive instrumental research support, improve teaching skills, and develop socioemotionally. Less research, however, has investigated the ways in which graduate students mentor undergraduate REU participants, and how the mentoring role may impact the graduate students. To address this gap in the literature, the current study examines the way in which graduate students mentor, and the impact of the mentor role on graduate students participating in a chemical engineering REU program. The research questions were explored using a mixed-methods approach. REU students and mentors were asked to complete preand post-surveys, as well as participate in a brief interview at the end of the REU experience. Mentor preand post-surveys included measures of their interest in serving as a mentor, their previous experience as an REU student or mentor, their mentorship style, their confidence in their ability to mentor others, and their beliefs about the value of mentoring others. Interview questions further explored the approaches that mentors used as well as the perceived impact on the graduate student of the mentor role. Overall, the results indicate that training of graduate student mentors in mentorship approaches may help them to more effectively work with REU students. Findings, suggestions for future research, and implications are discussed. Introduction and Background Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs provide participants with valuable experience that supplements their traditional engineering course work. The programs provide students opportunities to get real-world, hands-on experiences working in labs with other researchers. REU programs can be incredibly impactful, particularly towards the encouragement of students to attend graduate school or otherwise further pursue STEM fields (Landis, 2005; Youssef et al., 2016). Indeed, undergraduate research experiences have been promoted in recent years as a method of creating a sustainable pipeline to graduate school (Youssef et al., 2016). Many positive student outcomes have been associated with REU experiences, including increased interest in research (Alexander, Foertsch, & Daffinrud, 1998; Foertsch, Alexander, & Penberthy, 1997; Humphreys, 1997; Kitto, 1998; Russell, Hancock, McCullough, Roessner, & Storey, 2005; Youssef et al., 2016), increased determination and grit in pursuing post-secondary degrees (Alexander et al., 1998; Chaplin, Manske, & Cruise, 1998; Nagda, Gregerman, Jonides, von Hippel, & Lerner, 1998), improved research skills (Alexander et al., 1998; Foertsch et al., 1997; Gates, Teller, Bernat, Delgado, & Della-Piana, 1998; Mabrouk & Peters, 2000), and an increased likelihood to attend graduate school (Alexander et al., 1998; Foertsch et al., 1997; Gates et al., 1998; Mabrouk & Peters, 2000; Russell et al., 2005). Further, students in REU and other similar programs make gains in a plethora of research-related skills such as thinking logically about complex materials, data analysis, understanding chemical analysis, working independently, and project and time management skills (Porter, 2017; Williams, Hussain, Manojkumar, & Thapa, 2016; Zydney, Bennett, Shahid, & Bauer, 2002). While the literature abounds with papers evaluating the impact on student participants of various REU programs, less attention has been placed on the experiences of and impacts on the mentors with whom the students work. Although REU students work with faculty members at the host university, they typically work most closely on a day-to-day basis with graduate student or postdoctoral mentors who work in the faculty member’s laboratory. The majority of the engineering mentorship literature is focused on faculty as mentors, not graduate student mentors or postdoctoral researchers. Generally, much of the existing literature relating to mentorship in engineering explores the mentor’s experience (typically focusing on faculty as mentors) (Dolan & Johnson, 2009; Mena & Schmitz, 2013; Revelo & Loui, 2016; Tsai, Kotys-Schwartz, Louie, Ferguson, & Berg, 2012, 2013) rather than the mentee’s experience (Ahn, 2014; Ahn, Cox, Diefes-Dux, & Capobianco, 2013; Faurot, Doe, Jacobs, Lederman, & Brey, 2013). Those studies that investigate mentors’ experiences generally focus on outcomes such as immediate benefits to their research, their perceptions about their roles as mentors, and benefits to their future careers. Dolan and Johnson (2009) found that graduate student mentors benefitted in such areas as improved qualifications and work readiness, enhanced cognitive growth and “socioemotional” growth, and a greater appreciation of their own particular “apprenticeship” experiences. There is a notable dearth of studies investigating the complex relationships between mentors and students; furthermore, studies investigating mentors’ approaches to mentoring and teaching are also scarce. Ahn’s doctoral dissertation (2014) provides an extensive analysis of the practices that engineering mentors or postdoctoral researchers use when mentoring undergraduate students participating in an engineering or science undergraduate research experience. The purpose of Ahn’s study was to identify mentors who were effective instructors and to develop a survey to assess mentoring abilities in an undergraduate research setting. Based on results of an exploratory factor analysis of the survey data, four main effective mentoring strategies were identified: 1) the mentor’s willingness to work with the mentee in a research setting; 2) the mentor’s ability to identify the mentee’s research knowledge and skills, and provide individualized support; 3) the mentor being attentive to the daily tasks performed by the mentee; and 4) the mentor building a personal relationship with the mentee (outside the research setting). Ahn, Cox, Diefes-Dux, and Capobianco (2013) also investigated the best practices employed by effective mentors of an undergraduate research experience. In their study, undergraduate research participants were given the opportunity to nominate their mentors for an outstanding mentor award. The students were instructed to rate their mentors on a variety of factors, including technical and instructional competence, supervision and guidance, passion and enthusiasm for research, and motivation. Additionally, students wrote up to 500 words describing why their mentor deserved the award. Results from their analyses indicated five best practices that nominated mentors tended to engage in: 1) mentors assisted their students in comprehending their research project; 2) mentors helped undergraduates with their research work/process; 3) mentors answered students’ research-related questions; 4) mentors suggested that undergraduates communicate their research findings; and 5) mentors engaged in other highly-appreciated actions, for example, giving the student space and time to independently explore their interests, being highly available to meet with their students, and spending time with the student outside of the research program to discuss future career options. Graduate students continue to serve as mentors for undergraduates in a variety of contexts, including REU programs. REU programs are unique in that they typically last no more than about 10 weeks. Thus, the mentor’s relationship with their student may serve as a particularly important influence on the undergraduate student’s experience with research, which may be relatively short compared to other undergraduate research experiences. As discussed earlier, much of the engineering mentorship literature investigates outcomes pertinent to the mentor, such as their research productivity, socioemotional development, and their readiness for the workforce. However, research that investigates how mentors approach mentoring, especially within REU programs, is not as prevalent. Succinctly, more work surrounding REU mentors’ relationships with students, their approaches to teaching, and approaches to mentoring needs to be done. Thus, the current study endeavors to add to the REU literature by investigating how graduate student mentors approach mentoring undergraduate REU participants.