An inclusive Research Education Community (iREC): Impact of the SEA-PHAGES program on research outcomes and student learning

Abstract

Engaging undergraduate students in scientific research promises substantial benefits, but it is not accessible to all students and is rarely implemented early in college education, when it will have the greatest impact. An inclusive Research Education Community (iREC) provides a centralized scientific and administrative infrastructure enabling engagement of large numbers of students at different types of institutions. The Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) is an iREC that promotes engagement and continued involvement in science among beginning undergraduate students. The SEA-PHAGES students show strong gains correlated with persistence relative to those in traditional laboratory courses regardless of academic, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic profiles. This persistent involvement in science is reflected in key measures, including project ownership, scientific community values, science identity, and scientific networking.

Keywords: assessment; bacteriophage; evolution; genomics; science education.

Fig. 1.

Organization and structure of the SEA-PHAGES program. The SEA-PHAGES program administrators (yellow box) oversee support components critical to program implementation (green box). Typical two-term course structure (red box) includes phage isolation through comparative genomics; additional characterization includes EM, PCR/restriction analysis, and lysogeny assays (red ovals). Sequence and annotation quality control is shared with SEA-PHAGES faculty teams (purple box).

Fig. 2.

The SEA-PHAGES systems-level model. Systems-level SEA-PHAGES activities (white box) with short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes (red, blue, and green boxes, respectively). SI Appendix, Fig. S1 shows the entire model.

Fig. 3.

Program participants and research productivity from the SEA-PHAGES program. (A) Numbers of SEA-PHAGES institutions and students (blue and yellow bars, respectively) participating by academic year (fall semester). (B) Carnegie Classifications of SEA-PHAGES participating institutions. Assoc/Other, associate's colleges, and others; Bac/A&S, baccalaureate colleges—arts & sciences; Bac/Diverse, baccalaureate colleges—diverse fields; M1–M3, larger, medium, and smaller master's colleges and universities, respectively; R1–R3, doctoral universities with highest, higher, and moderate research activity, respectively. (C) Numbers of phages isolated and genomes sequenced (pink and aqua, respectively) by academic year. (D) Numbers of peer-reviewed SEA-PHAGES publications as Genome Announcements (Gen Ann) and other peer-reviewed papers (Papers) (SI Appendix, Table S2). (E) Citations of SEA-PHAGES papers, showing all citations and nonself-citations.

Fig. 4.

Comparison of intent to persist in the sciences for students taking SEA-PHAGES and traditional laboratory courses. The PITS survey responses comparing SEA-PHAGES and nonresearch laboratory courses (blue and yellow bars, respectively). (A) Propensity score matching balanced all variables, except for course type. (B–F) Equally sized randomly chosen subsets of students were selected and compared using multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) (all P < 0.0001) and ANOVA, with significant differences indicated. Groups analyzed are those reporting a high (scoring five on a five-point scale) intent to stay in the sciences (B), first generation students (C), women (D), underrepresented minorities (E), and underrepresented minority males (F). The PITS survey rating scales are from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree) for all measures except for scientific community values, which had a one (not like me at all) to six (very much like me) scale. All scales had full descriptors for each of the levels on the scale. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.0001.

Fig. 5.

Comparisons of student subgroups taking the SEA-PHAGES courses on their intent to persist in the sciences. The PITS survey responses for equally sized randomly chosen subsets of students were selected and compared. Groups differed by institutions (A), socioeconomic status (B), grade point average (C), gender (D), or ethnicity (E). Multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) showed only small differences for some groups (institution type, P < 0.049; grade point average, P < 0.04; gender, P < 0.001). Significant differences using univariate analyses (ANOVA) are shown. The PITS survey rating scales are from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree) for all measures except for scientific community values, which had a one (not like me at all) to six (very much like me) scale. All scales had full descriptors for each of the levels on the scale. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01. (F) Average number of science courses taken by students experiencing SEA-PHAGES (red) or a nonresearch laboratory course (blue) in three subsequent terms; 95% confidence intervals are shown.