The Impact of Postgraduate Mentors on Undergraduate Researcher Gains
These videos have been matched automatically. Contact us if they are not relevant.
These videos have been matched automatically. Contact us if they are not relevant.
View abstract on PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.Postgraduate mentors significantly impact undergraduate research experiences. Factors like mentor competence and mentee-mentor demographics influence student gains in science identity and personal development.
Area Of Science
- STEM Education
- Mentorship in Research
Background
- Undergraduate researchers (UGRs) in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are typically guided by faculty mentors.
- The role and impact of postgraduate mentors (graduate students or postdoctoral personnel) on UGRs are less understood.
Purpose Of The Study
- To investigate how postgraduate mentors influence the experiences and gains of undergraduate researchers.
- To identify specific mentor and mentee characteristics associated with positive outcomes.
Main Methods
- Survey data collected from 516 UGRs across 78 National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates Sites in Summer 2022.
- Multivariable multilevel analyses were conducted on data from 229 UGRs who had a postgraduate mentor.
Main Results
- 44% of UGRs reported having a postgraduate mentor.
- Key factors associated with greater science identity, personal, and intellectual gains included: mentor competence, having a graduate student mentor, and spending over 26 hours weekly with the mentor.
- Mentee-mentor gender identity mismatch and racial identity match were also significant.
- Hispanic and multiracial/other race students reported greater gains; transgender and gender nonconforming students reported fewer gains compared to their peers.
Conclusions
- Postgraduate mentorship is a critical component of the undergraduate research enterprise.
- Attributes and behaviors of postgraduate mentors are integral to shaping UGR experiences and outcomes.
- Practitioners and analysts should recognize and leverage the importance of postgraduate mentorship.
These videos have been matched automatically. Contact us if they are not relevant.
These videos have been matched automatically. Contact us if they are not relevant.
Related Concept Videos
Adolescence is a pivotal period of identity formation, during which individuals begin to answer questions central to their sense of self, such as "Who am I?" and "Who do I hope to become?" Both parents and peers play critical roles in guiding adolescents through this complex developmental phase.
Parental Influence on Identity Development
Parents serve as primary guides and managers in an adolescent's life, offering support instrumental in decision-making and personal growth....
Sometimes we want to see how people change over time, as in studies of human development and lifespan. When we test the same group of individuals repeatedly over an extended period of time, we are conducting longitudinal research. Longitudinal research is a research design in which data-gathering is administered repeatedly over an extended period of time. For example, we may survey a group of individuals about their dietary habits at age 20, retest them a decade later at age 30, and then again...
Some researchers gain access to large amounts of data without interacting with a single research participant. Instead, they use existing records to answer various research questions. This type of research approach is known as archival research. Archival research relies on looking at past records or data sets to look for interesting patterns or relationships. For example, a researcher might access the academic records of all individuals who enrolled in college within the past ten years and...
There are many research methods available to psychologists in their efforts to understand, describe, and explain behavior and the cognitive and biological processes that underlie it.
In 2011, the New York Times published a feature story on Krista and Tatiana Hogan, Canadian twin girls. These particular twins are unique because Krista and Tatiana are conjoined twins, connected at the head. There is evidence that the two girls are connected in a part of the brain called the thalamus, which is a...
Once data is collected from both the experimental and the control groups, a statistical analysis is conducted to find out if there are meaningful differences between the two groups. A statistical analysis determines how likely any difference found is due to chance (and thus not meaningful). In psychology, group differences are considered meaningful, or significant, if the odds that these differences occurred by chance alone are 5 percent or less. Stated another way, if we repeated this...
If you want to understand how behavior occurs, one of the best ways to gain information is to simply observe the behavior in its natural context. However, people might change their behavior in unexpected ways if they know they are being observed. How do researchers obtain accurate information when people tend to hide their natural behavior? As an example, imagine that your professor asks everyone in your class to raise their hand if they always wash their hands after using the restroom. Chances...