Department of Sociology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 May 27;19(11):6534. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19116534.
Undergraduate research is a high-impact practice on college campuses. How the COVID-19 pandemic has affected undergraduate researchers' progress is poorly understood. We examine how demographics, academic characteristics, research disruptions and faculty mentorship are associated with four barriers to research progress. Data are drawn from a survey of over 1000 undergraduate student researchers across the US. We examine students who actively continued to conduct faculty-mentored research during mid-March/April 2020 ( = 485). Using generalized estimating equations that control clustering by institution, we found economic hardship, discomfort teleconferencing, lower quality mentors, sexual minority status and higher grade point averages were associated with motivation problems. Economic hardship, serious illness, Internet connection issues, a lack of face-to-face meetings and lower a frequency of mentor-mentee communication were associated with a time crunch with regard to conducting research. Discomfort teleconferencing, Internet connection issues, a lack of face-to-face meetings and decrease in research workload were associated with task uncertainty. Economic hardship, serious illness and being an engineering major were associated with lacking needed tools for the research. In sum, economic hardship was an important correlate of research barriers, as were communication challenges and sexual minority status. Results can inform practical actions by research program directors and faculty undergraduate research mentors.
本科研究是大学校园中的一项高影响力实践。人们对 COVID-19 大流行如何影响本科生研究人员的进展知之甚少。我们研究了人口统计学特征、学术特征、研究中断和教师指导如何与研究进展的四个障碍相关。数据来自对美国各地 1000 多名本科学生研究人员的调查。我们研究了在 2020 年 3 月/4 月中旬积极继续进行教师指导研究的学生（=485）。使用广义估计方程控制按机构聚类，我们发现经济困难、不适应远程会议、导师素质较低、性少数群体地位和较高的平均绩点与动机问题有关。经济困难、严重疾病、互联网连接问题、缺乏面对面会议以及导师与学生交流频率降低与研究时间紧张有关。不适应远程会议、互联网连接问题、缺乏面对面会议以及研究工作量减少与任务不确定性有关。经济困难、严重疾病和工程专业与缺乏研究所需的工具有关。总之，经济困难是研究障碍的一个重要相关因素，沟通挑战和性少数群体地位也是如此。研究结果可为研究计划主任和教师本科研究导师提供实用的行动信息。
