Ecological Practices is one of the four dimensions of ESA’s 4DEE Framework. Laboratory courses that implement course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) emphasize many of the Ecological Practices. We were interested in examining the impact of course-based research in our introductory biology lab courses on under-represented minority (URM) students. In particular, we examined whether perceptions of science practices and factors related to persistence in science differed between URM and non-URM students. Perceptions of science practices were measured using an instructional practices survey for inquiry-based labs. We also used the Persistence in the Sciences (PITS) survey, which measures a range of factors that are correlated with persistence of students in science majors, in two different semesters. For all surveys, we collected self-reports of student demographics and current or previous research experience.
Results/Conclusions
Student perceptions of the degree to which they were required to use scientific synthesis skills did not differ between URM and non-URM students. In contrast, for students who self-reported that they expected to receive a B in lab, URM students perceived that the lab involved fewer science process skills than non-URM students. In our first semester course, URM students had marginally significantly lower self-efficacy of science process skills both at the beginning and the end of the semester, though the absolute increase did not differ from that of non-URM students. All students reported similar levels of science identity, science community values, ownership, and networking at the end of the semester. In our second semester course, students did not differ either at the beginning or end of the semester in their self-reports of self-efficacy, science identity, or science community values based on URM status. At the end of the semester, self-reports for all factors in the PITS survey were not significantly different for URM and non-URM students. Together, our results suggest that CUREs can result in similar student perceptions of their courses and their own abilities in some Ecological Practices that relate to persistence in science for URM and non-URM students.