Title: Searching for a CURE: Students’ perceptions of authenticity and experimental physics during a course-based undergraduate research experience 

Dr. Alexandra Werth 

Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University

Abstract: There have been recent calls to create more opportunities for students to participate in undergraduate research experiences in order to increase persistence, interest, and identity within the sciences. Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), where students engage in authentic scientific discovery in which they answer a question where the answer is initially unknown to both students and the scientific community, is one proposed way of doing this. Here, I present student experiences with authentic research in a large, introductory physics CURE (C-PhLARE) conducted remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use student responses to closed-response surveys, as well as written responses to an open-ended end-of-course assignment to investigate what aspects of real research students felt that they participated in, the extent to which students felt that they participated in authentic research, and how the authentic experience changed their views of experimental physics. We found that most students in the course felt like they engaged in real-world research during the course and many students highlighted their experience with authentic research when asked to describe their experience in the course more broadly. Additionally, we observed that the C-PhLARE CURE had a significant impact on many of the students beliefs about experimental physics aligned with the objectives of the course; notably, students had more expertlike views in areas such as communicating scientific findings to peers, understandings of authentic research practices, and students’ belief in their own research capabilities. 

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