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Description
Undergraduate Research Experiences (UREs) play a pivotal part in identifying many ways to strengthen and prepare students for their academic and professional goals; however, less is known about the individual factors affecting undergraduate students joining, persisting, and leaving UREs. Social influence theory describes these factors as influencing agents, which can be Representatives of the Community (i.e., principal investigator and family), as well as Contextual Variables (i.e., research focus and programs). Influencing agents have been shown to impact students’ sense of belonging, ownership of research, and their intentions to participate in academic community activities. Social psychologists have shown that social influence is ubiquitous—occurring frequently and in a multitude of situations, but not much is known about social influence in the context of chemistry and biochemistry UREs. Influencing agents impact interest and persistence in UREs, thus influencing the student intentionally or unintentionally in the academic environment. In this study, qualitative data was collected through interviews with six individuals who participated in UREs in the Chemistry & Biochemistry department of a large research active Hispanic-Serving Institution in the Western United States along with open-ended responses to Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA) survey items. Qualitative analysis and theme generation via a priori coding and Reflexive Thematic Analysis were conducted to identify influencing agents related to the discovery and journey of UREs. Themes of Join, Persist, and Leave were identified and each journey was shown to incorporate influencing agents in unique ways. Case studies were developed to further detail and define the relationship between influencing agents and individual UREs, such as principal investigator, graduate students, and work environment, as well as investigate the effect of influencing agents on a student’s decision to participate in a URE. This study provides suggestions for application of the influencing agent codebook to encourage open communication within UREs between research faculty and undergraduates. This study contributes to the literature on creating successful UREs, which may be unique for each student, using the lens of social influence theory to provide insight into student persistence in undergraduate research and the factors that can help foster positive research laboratory experiences.
