This study examined opportunities for enhancing transfer outcomes for community college students through summer research opportunities at a university. It emphasizes the significance of academic capital, derived from Bourdieu's cultural capital theory, in facilitating successful transfers. By offering ten-week paid summer research opportunities at…

The purpose of this study is to investigate how a virtual mentored research program, the National Summer Undergraduate Research Project (NSURP), affects sense of belonging among underserved students in science fields. Examining the effects of virtual research programs can contribute to the body of research on ways to instill sense of belonging…

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) undergraduate research programs have been shown to impact students' access, learning, and retention in STEM fields (Reave, 2004; Seymour, Hunter, Laursen, & DeAntoni, 2004). Research has also shown that student-adviser relationships in STEM undergraduate research programs prepare students for…

There have been calls by the Federal government and policymakers for improvements in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education through the development of excellent teachers with the content knowledge and skills to teach and motivate students. A shared goal among teacher professional development (PD) programs is to improve…

With increasing numbers of first-generation college students enrolling in colleges and universities across the US, so too is the need to begin preparing such underrepresented students for graduate school and a career in academia. As a phenomenological case study of student transformation, this dissertation examines the experience of nine…

Understanding the ways in which scientific knowledge develops, or the epistemology of science, is believed to be a crucial component of scientific literacy. This construct is more formally known as Nature of Science (NOS) within the science education community. The merits of three different approaches to NOS teaching and learning in the context of…

This study explores undergraduate students' experiences of learning disciplinary research in a summer undergraduate research program (S-UR). The study used a qualitative research design incorporating semi-structured interview, observation, and document analysis methods to analyze the learning experiences of nine study participants from different…