Cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes associated with student engagement in a novel brain chemoarchitecture mapping course-based undergraduate research experience

Abstract

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) engage emerging scholars in the authentic process of scientific discovery, and foster their development of content knowledge, motivation, and persistence in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Importantly, authentic research courses simultaneously offer investigators unique access to an extended population of students who receive education and mentoring in conducting scientifically relevant investigations and who are thus able to contribute effort toward big-data projects. While this paradigm benefits fields in neuroscience, such as atlas-based brain mapping of nerve cells at the tissue level, there are few documented cases of such laboratory courses offered in the domain.Here, we describe a curriculum designed to address this deficit, evaluate the scientific merit of novel student-produced brainatlasmapsofimmunohistochemically-identifiednervecellpopulations for the rat brain, and assess shifts in science identity, attitudes, and science communication skills of students engaged in the introductory-level Brain Mapping and Connectomics (BM&C) CURE. BM&C students reported gains in research and science process skills following participation in the course. Furthermore, BM&C students experienced a greater sense of science identity, including a greater likelihood to discuss course activities with non-class members compared to their non-CURE counterparts. Importantly, evaluation of student-generated brain atlas maps indicated that the course enabled students to produce scientifically valid products and make new discoveries to advance the field of neuroanatomy. Together, these findings support the efficacy of the BM&C course in addressing the relatively esoteric demands of chemoarchitectural brain mapping.

Professional social connections are associated with student science identity in a research‐based field biology course

“…This research is the first to illustrate that students engage in substantial field biology research-centered interaction with their personal communities (Figure 3a). These results align with prior studies on student outcomes in molecular biology (Hanauer & Hatfull, 2015), public health (Olimpo et al, 2019), and neuroscience (D'Arcy et al, 2019) CUREs, in which students discussed their course research with family, friends, and the broader scientific community. Notably, these connections can prove valuable in creating productive partnerships for community-centered research, wherein students form or make use of existing personal connections through engagement and community intervention.…”

The DoC IT: a Professional Development Tool to Support and Articulate Alignment of One’s Course with the Five Dimensions of CUREs

“…It also got me thinking about how I can create more activities and formative assessments to measure iteration.” While we do not anticipate that CURE facilitators and educator-scholars will explicitly replicate the tables found within the DoC IT when disseminating information about their own CUREs (although see Fig. 2 in D’Arcy et al [ 12 ] for a potential adaptation), we are nevertheless optimistic that the DoC IT provides an important step in achieving a more uniform means to communicate about CUREs, particularly among diverse CURE audiences.…”

SMART CUREs: a Professional Development Program for Advancing Teaching Assistant Preparedness To Facilitate Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences

“…Over the last decade, the prevalence of CUREs in collegiate biology laboratory curricula has continued to grow, with numerous studies demonstrating their effectiveness at promoting students’ science process skills development, positive affect, ability to “think like a scientist,” and persistence in STEM ( 4 , 6 , 13 , 38 – 41 ). Comparatively, little research has been conducted on the perceptions of faculty who facilitate CUREs (reference 8 , for example), and even fewer studies have investigated the perceptions of GTAs tasked with leading these courses.…”