Engaging undergraduates in research is a high impact practice shown to increase underrepresented students' persistence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields and entry into research careers. The California State University Long Beach (CSULB) BUilding Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Scholars Program is a 2-year, upper-division research training program. Although similar research training programs exist, most admit relatively few students a year, primarily from the natural sciences. The BUILD award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) allowed us to broaden research training to a wider range of health-related disciplines across four different colleges to have more even representation across the behavioral and biomedical science disciplines. Our Scholars Program builds upon best practices of programmatic mentoring, assets-based and cohort-based training, financial and educational support, and intensive research training by faculty in the students' disciplines. In this paper, we present the outcomes and evaluation of our training program with data from the first phase of the BUILD award (2015-2019). Findings demonstrate that our Scholars Program was effective at recruiting and retaining underrepresented students from a broad range of disciplines. Moreover, our trainees demonstrated a high level of research engagement through off-campus summer research experiences, conference presentations, and publications. The intensive training in the Scholars Program also yielded high graduate school acceptance rates for our trainees. Most importantly, our findings show that it is possible to broaden an intensive undergraduate research training program that is similarly effective for trainees across behavioral and biomedical disciplines, underrepresented minority status, and gender. While we highlight several elements of our training program, we emphasize these components likely work together interactively, and institutions wanting to establish a similar training program need to ensure sufficient resources for its successful implementation.
Cultural Mismatch Theory (CMT) suggests mismatch between interdependent home norms and independent school norms can hinder academic success for historically marginalized (HM) students who are more likely to be first-generation college students and underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The effectiveness of a CMT intervention to increase science self-efficacy was tested among 213 (Mage = 22.99, SD = 5.74; 8.2% HM) STEM majors from a community college and baccalaureate-granting institution. CMT intervention students reported higher science self-efficacy relative to the control group. The findings support scalable CMT interventions to address STEM workforce disparities.
Colleges and universities nationwide have attempted to address the persistent demographic disparities in the health-related research workforce - particularly the lack of Black/African-American and Hispanic/Latinx researchers - by engaging traditionally underrepresented minority students in research early in their undergraduate academic careers. Previous efforts have focused on formal research training programs or course-based undergraduate research training, which commonly serve small student populations and are narrow in scope. With support from the NIH Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) grant, California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) developed research-infused courses that introduce students to methods and skills for biomedical and behavioral research as well as enhance students' understanding of health disparities and the value of interdisciplinary approaches to solving problems. This study aims to identify promising pedagogical strategies and understand the extent to which students' ethnic minority status and formalized research training experience are associated with their perceptions of personal development gains and research and technical skills. Based on student survey data (N = 410) across three academic years, findings from this study indicate that research-infused courses have the potential to equitably engage students, regardless of their race/ethnicity and participation in formal research training. In addition, research-infused courses could potentially serve as a mechanism for colleges and universities to institutionalize opportunities for a broad range of students to be exposed to research methods and skills-building.
There is a broad need to support the early educational trajectories of underrepresented students pursuing behavioral and biomedical research, particularly at large, comprehensive institutions. The Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) created an Associates Program designed to provide undergraduates with early exposure to research and foster a sense of belonging and interest in a research career during their sophomore year. Our Associates Program had high retention rates (> 90%) and served as a pathway to other research opportunities on campus, with over half of the students entering an intensive, upper-division research training program at CSULB upon completion. Analysis of evaluation data gathered at multiple points throughout the training program provided preliminary evidence that our early intervention program resulted in student trainees' growth in a number of key areas, including their sense of belong to the BUILD Program, interests in science and research, and understanding of what research entails and of the skills necessary for conducting research (e.g., scientific writing, oral presentation, data analysis). More importantly, comparisons of the students who continued on to an upper-division research training program to those who did not continue revealed that students who continued reported generally higher levels of science/research interests regardless of the time points of the survey, and a greater increase in their perception of gains made in some areas of research during the second half of the training program. Lastly, our results also showed that the Associates Program is similarly effective for trainees across behavioral and biomedical disciplines, underrepresented minority status, and gender. Based on these findings, we conclude that an early intervention program for undergraduate students results in development of research skills for students exploring research and serves as an effective pipeline for diverse students into more intensive upper-division training programs.
Research mentoring relationships are critical to mentees' persistence in STEM careers. Cultural identity variables (gender, race, ethnicity) influence how mentees experience mentoring relationships, including their developmental needs and expectations of mentors. Research shows that mentees from underrepresented groups in STEM often want to discuss topics related to race and ethnicity and how these factors impact their careers. However, many research mentors are uncertain of their ability to broach cultural diversity issues in mentorship, or in strategies to engage in culturally aware mentoring practices. To address this need, we developed an evidence-based mentor training intervention for Enhanced Cultural Awareness (ECA) in mentorship. We implemented this 2hr module online with research mentors (N=62) largely from well-represented racial/ethnic groups in STEM who were mentoring undergraduate researchers from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. Mentors reported significant gains in skills, attitudes and behaviors related to cultural awareness in mentoring. The majority of mentors found the training valuable, and 97% of mentors reported intending to make changes in mentoring practices post intervention. Our results indicate that the ECA module is an effective tool to increase mentors' capacity to enact culturally aware mentoring practices. Implications for continued research and mentorship education to enhance mentors' cultural awareness are also discussed.
