Evaluation of a Nine Year Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Biomedical Engineering

Interest and opportunities for undergraduate research programs continues to increase at universities throughout the United States. Despite the significant level of interest and support for these activities our understanding of the characteristics of a successful program and its long-term impact on student outcomes remains is limited. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact the relationships and interactions with faculty, graduate student mentors, and other undergraduate researchers in a summer program at the Illinois Institute of Technology had on the participants’ career paths. Over the nine years, there have been 131 undergraduate students who participated. Ninety nine (76%) of these students were supported via funding from the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. The other 32 (24%) were supported through institutional funds. More than half of the students (56.5%) were female, 26.7% of the students were from underrepresented groups, and 52.7% students without previous research experience. The undergraduate research program understudy is a 10-week engineering research project working in research laboratories at the University or a collaborating Medical School. A tiered mentoring structure was developed within the participating laboratories that consisted of some combination of faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, community college students, and high school students. A longitudinal survey was administered to all previous REU students to track post-program activities and collect data on their perceptions of the impact of the REU program on their educational and professional careers. Descriptive statistics and content analysis method was used to analyze the data. The response rate of the longitudinal survey was 78.8% (78/99). Of students who have completed their undergraduate studies, 57.3% are currently in/have completed graduate studies in a STEM field. The students Page 26695.3