Challenges and outcomes in remote undergraduate research programs during the COVID-19 pandemic

In the summer of 2020, as COVID-19 limited in-person research opportunities and created additional barriers for many students, institutions either canceled or remotely hosted their research experience for undergraduates (REU) programs. The present qualitative phenomenographic study was designed to explore some of the possible limitations, challenges, and outcomes of this remote experience. Overall, 94 interviews were conducted with paired participants; mentees ($N=10$) and mentors ($N=8$) from six different REU programs. By drawing on cultural-historical activity theory as a framework, our study uncovers some of the challenges mentees faced while pursuing their research objectives and academic goals. These challenges included motivation, limited access to technology at home, limited communication among REU students, barriers in mentor-mentee relationships, and differing expectations about doing research. Despite the challenges, all mentees reported that this experience was highly beneficial. Comparisons between the outcomes of these remote REUs and published outcomes of in-person undergraduate research programs reveal many similar benefits, including student integration into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics culture. Our study suggests that remote research programs could be considered a means to expand access to undergraduate research experiences even after COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted.

Figure 1

A representation of an REU as an activity system. The triangular model follows Engeström [24]. For each node of the activity system diagram, we provide several examples from our data.

Figure 2

Timeline of the longitudinal study that explored multiple facets of the REU as an activity system. The bold words indicate intentional alignment between the interview protocol and the CHAT framework. The interviews included perspectives from mentees (light gray) and mentors (dark gray). Interviews 9 and 10 occurred after the REU was complete and emphasized many of the outcomes that are discussed in this paper.

Figure 3

Example showing how working from home introduced technical challenges. The dashed lines represent the tension between elements of CHAT.

Figure 4

Example showing the different motivational challenges that working from home created. The different dashed paths represent tensions between different elements of CHAT. (a) Dashed lines represent tension in mentees’ level of motivation and productivity due to a working environment that creates isolation and no sense of peer community. (b) Dashed lines represent tension in mentees’ level of motivation and productivity due to the lack of a robust research plan (black dashes) and due to distractions created by working from home (light blue dashes).

Figure 5

A second example showing how working from home introduced motivational challenges. The dashed lines represent tension between elements of CHAT.

Figure 6

Example showing how information overload and lack of time introduced challenges. Black dashed lines represent tension in the REU activity system due to the lack of time, and the blue dashed lines show the tension in the mentor-mentee relationship due to the lack of sufficient instruction.

Figure 7

Example showing how lack of communication opportunities among REU students introduced challenges. The dashed lines represent tension between elements of CHAT.

Figure 8

Example showing how barriers in mentor-mentee relationships introduced challenges. Black dashed lines represent tension in the mentor-mentee relationship due to the lack of weekly meetings and the blue dashed lines show the tension in the mentor-mentee relationship due to the use of emails instead of Zoom.

Figure 9

Example showing how differing expectations between mentors and mentees introduced challenges. The dashed lines represent the tension between elements of CHAT.