The Impact of Undergraduate Research Experience Intensity on Measures of Student Success

Despite the growing interest to provide research engagement opportunities to undergraduate students, few studies have investigated how engagement “intensity” impacts measures of student success. A quasi-experimental, matched-subject design was employed to study differences between varying levels of research experience intensity (i.e., Experienced, Novice, Control groups) on Graduating GPA, Time to Graduate, and type of post-graduation experience. Results indicated that experienced students had significantly higher graduating GPAs than novice or control students, and both research groups had significantly lower time to graduate than the control group. Findings also indicated experienced student researchers are significantly more likely to progress to graduate school than either novice research or control students. Implications for implementing research initiatives are discussed

Evaluation of accessibility: A preliminary analysis of recipients of Florida Atlantic’s Undergraduate Research Certificate

As the most diverse institution in the Florida State University System, FAU is a Hispanic-serving, R2 university with over 30,000 students with a large transfer student population. While engagement in High Impact Practices (HIPs) such as Undergraduate Research is well documented in the literature, there still remains a need to incentivize and quantify student engagement in undergraduate research, especially to our diverse population. At Florida Atlantic, a 12-credit, university-wide certificate program was developed to recognize undergraduate students for systematic progress of excellence in undergraduate research. The intent was to provide evidence to future employers and graduate schools that the student has achieved proficiency in Research. The certificate was designed with our diverse student population in mind, accounting for ensuring accessibility to both our traditional students and transfer student population. This interactive presentation will describe the criteria for the Undergraduate Research Certificate and how diverse student needs were included in the design. We will share how Florida Atlantic implemented the certificate and collected data on student engagement. We will present preliminary data and analysis of the recipients of the certificate over the past three years and evaluate whether our model accomplished our goal of accessibility. Presenters will engage session attendees in a discussion of strategies employed including establishing institutional partnerships and collaborations, marketing the certificate, data collection, and share lessons learned and next steps

Augmented Intelligence in Academia: Training the Next Generation of Researchers

As generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly accessible, more people turn to it for automation of various creative and analytical tasks. A significant concern is the ability to encourage both students and faculty alike to appropriately, thoughtfully, and ethically apply the use of generative AI in their research process where they choose to use it. This presentation discusses the policy, training, and outreach initiatives that the Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry at Florida Atlantic University have undertaken to align undergraduate research approaches to generative AI with the University\u27s greater mission towards AI ethics and literacy, while emphasizing the cultivation of researchers\u27 own expertise and skillsets, an approach described by the American Medical Association as augmented intelligence . This move has included the creation of an AI policy for the Office of Undergraduate Research in alignment with the University\u27s AI policy, constructed with the help of faculty engaged in undergraduate research and guided by industry approaches to AI use; addition of open-ended, brief confirmation questions about AI tools used on every submission package; an affirmation of the policy for both reviewers and submitters on every submission package; a one-hour workshop outlining the basic function of generative AI and sample ideas of appropriate uses; and outreach and collaboration with other departments in the University including eLearning and the Graduate College. Though matters around generative AI are complex, training students to navigate these and augment their own capacities can encourage and strengthen their own critical analysis and creativity

The Impact of Undergraduate Research Experience Intensity on Measures of Student Success

Despite the growing interest to provide research engagement opportunities to undergraduate students, few studies have investigated how engagement “intensity” impacts measures of student success. A quasi-experimental, matched-subject design was employed to study differences between varying levels of research experience intensity (i.e., Experienced, Novice, Control groups) on Graduating GPA, Time to Graduate, and type of post-graduation experience. Results indicated that experienced students had significantly higher graduating GPAs than novice or control students, and both research groups had significantly lower time to graduate than the control group. Findings also indicated experienced student researchers are significantly more likely to progress to graduate school than either novice research or control students. Implications for implementing research initiatives are discussed

RNA interference in Lepidoptera: an overview of successful and unsuccessful studies and implications for experimental design

Gene silencing through RNA interference (RNAi) has revolutionized the study of gene function, particularly in non-model insects. However, in Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) RNAi has many times proven to be difficult to achieve. Most of the negative results have been anecdotal and the positive experiments have not been collected in such a way that they are possible to analyze. In this review, we have collected detailed data from more than 150 experiments including all to date published and many unpublished experiments. Despite a large variation in the data, trends that are found are that RNAi is particularly successful in the family Saturniidae and in genes involved in immunity. On the contrary, gene expression in epidermal tissues seems to be most difficult to silence. In addition, gene silencing by feeding dsRNA requires high concentrations for success. Possible causes for the variability of success in RNAi experiments in Lepidoptera are discussed. The review also points to a need to further investigate the mechanism of RNAi in lepidopteran insects and its possible connection to the innate immune response. Our general understanding of RNAi in Lepidoptera will be further aided in the future as our public database at http://insectacentral.org/RNAi will continue to gather information on RNAi experiments