Student experiences with authentic research in a remote, introductory course-based undergraduate research experience in physics

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Instructional labs: Improving traditions and new directions.] Participation in undergraduate research experiences (UREs) has been identified as an important way of increasing undergraduate retention, interest, and identity within the sciences. Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been shown to have similar outcomes to UREs but can reach a larger number of students at one time and are accessible to any student simply through enrollment in a course. One key component of a CURE is that students must participate in authentic scientific discovery in which they answer a question where the answer is initially unknown to both students and the scientific community. Here, we present student experiences with authentic research in a large, introductory physics CURE conducted remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use student responses to a closed ended survey question, as well as written responses to an open-ended end-of-course assignment to investigate what aspects of real research students felt that they participated in and the extent to which students felt that they participated in authentic research. Most students in the course felt like they engaged in real-world research during the course and a large number of students highlighted their experience with authentic research when asked to describe their experience in the course more broadly. We discuss which elements of the course may have contributed to the students’ experiences of authentic research.

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Figure 1

Student responses to the question How much did you engage in real-world science research? Uncertainties are calculated using the binomial confidence interval with $\alpha =95\%$.

Figure 2

Student 1’s response to the memo assignment. Green highlighting corresponds to a “direct authenticity” code, blue highlighting corresponds to an “indirect authenticity” code, and yellow highlighting corresponds to a “research components” code.

Figure 3

Student 2’s response to the memo assignment. Green highlighting corresponds to a direct authenticity code, blue highlighting corresponds to an indirect authenticity code, and yellow highlighting corresponds to a research components code.

Figure 4

A portion of Student 3’s response to the memo assignment. Green highlighting corresponds to a direct authenticity code, blue highlighting corresponds to an Indirect authenticity code, and yellow highlighting corresponds to a research components code.

Figure 5

Student 4’s response to the memo assignment. Green highlighting corresponds to a direct authenticity code, blue highlighting corresponds to an indirect authenticity code, and yellow highlighting corresponds to a research components code.

Figure 6

Percentage of times that scientific practices was co-coded with each other indirect and direct authenticity code.

Figure 7

Percentage of times that comparison to prior studies was co-coded with each other indirect and direct authenticity code.