Work in Progress: Effectiveness of an REU SITE at Preparing Students for Graduate School
- Conference
- Location
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Anderson, Indiana
- Publication Date
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April 9, 2022
- Start Date
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April 9, 2022
- End Date
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April 9, 2022
- Tagged Topic
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Diversity
- Page Count
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7
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--42143
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/42143
- Download Count
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213
Paper Authors
La'Tonia Stiner-Jones The Ohio State University
Dr. Stiner-Jones is Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Associate Professor of Practice in Biomedical Engineering at The Ohio State University’s College of Engineering. As Associate Dean she provides leadership of graduate affairs and professional development for graduate students and postdoctoral trainees. She also oversees strategic recruitment of graduate students with a focus on increasing diversity. As Associate Professor, she is responsible for participating in teaching, scholarship and service to the department. Dr. Stiner-Jones recently won funding for the College’s first National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates SITE program. She and her co-investigators aim to provide students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds with a 10-week research immersion and prepare them for graduate school. She is the recipient of the 2018 College of Engineering Faculty Diversity Excellence Award for achievements that support the College’s goal of excellence through diversity and inclusion. She and her co-author are the recipients of the 2019 Best Paper and Best Diversity Paper Awards from the American Society for Engineering Education for their paper citing the changes made to the way graduate students are evaluated for admissions. She also serves as the Associate Director for the $18M Center of Emergent Materials and is Co-PI and Consortium Director of the $40M Air Force Research Laboratory Minority Serving Institution Consortium agreement.
Dr. Stiner-Jones received her Bachelor’s and PhD. degrees from Wright State University and her MBA from Capital University. After completing her PhD in Biomedical Sciences, she completed postdocs, in neuroimmunology and psychoneuroimmunology at Ohio State. Her area of expertise is the impacts of psychological stress on the immune response. Her work has been published in numerous scientific journals and presented both nationally and internationally.
Abstract
This is a follow-up to our initial study of our Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) SITE program focused on preparing students to pursue graduate degrees in Biomechanics and Mechanobiology (BMMB). Our first study summarized that the program met our objectives of providing students an independent research experience, increasing their perception of preparedness for success in the graduate application process and graduate school, and increasing their ability to communicate about BMMB1. Here we report on where our students are now and how the program enhanced their knowledge, skills, and preparation for graduate school. We used our site-licensed online survey tool Qualtrics to administer the surveys used to collect the data. We used pre- and post-survey data to assess changes over the 10-week period. The data were analyzed using a paired t-test from GraphPad Prism 9.3.0 software. The data indicate that by the end of the program students believed they were better able to prepare and give research presentations, p<0.01 and p<0.05 respectively. Similarly, students expressed feeling better prepared to write an abstract by the end of the program, p<0.005. Furthermore, students felt better prepared to design posters, p<0.05. In fact, 90% of faculty indicated that their students did well presenting their symposium posters. By the end of the program students believed their knowledge of the applications of the work done in the field of BMMB had increased, p<0.001. Additionally, 2 students have co-authored publications from their research projects. So far, 80% of our participants have applied to graduate programs. Seventy percent are currently enrolled in a graduate program. All of the participants in our REU SITE program have been from an underrepresented minority group. The enrollment of our participants in graduate programs has begun to enhance diversity in engineering. Moving forward we will continue to track student progress through their degrees and the careers they ultimately pursue in comparison to their original intent as reported during our program.
Stiner-Jones, L. (2022, April), Work in Progress: Effectiveness of an REU SITE at Preparing Students for Graduate School Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Illinois-Indiana Section Conference , Anderson, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--42143
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