Ross Stites
Kansas City Kansas Community College, KS·Education Research
Doing real research, rather than following recipe-style labs, can change how students learn science, yet community college students rarely get the chance. This project asks how course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), in which a whole class works on an authentic research question as part of a regular course, affect student success at a two-year college.
- Fields
Education Research
- Topics
course-based undergraduate research experiences
community college
two-year college
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Increase the number of STEM courses at a two-year college that use course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), in which an entire class carries out authentic research as part of the course.
- Recruit a team of ten faculty and deliver professional development in research-experience design, implementation and assessment practices aimed at student engagement, inclusion and success.
- Compare experiences and success of students in research-focused courses versus traditional courses using student surveys, with mixed-methods formative and summative evaluation by an external evaluator.
- Expand adoption of the CURE model across the broader community through local and regional conferences, webinars and campus meetings, and build administrative support for sustainability.
More about the research
It also tackles the barriers that keep such courses from spreading. The goals are to widen access to research across STEM disciplines and to help prepare students for regional industry jobs.
Why it matters
Community college students make up a large share of future technicians and scientists but often lack access to hands-on research. By measuring how research-based courses affect student success and by building a faculty network to sustain them, this work could give two-year colleges evidence and a working model for broader, more equitable research access, and could help colleges meet regional workforce demand.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Nia Bauer
Arapahoe Community College, CO·Education Research
Develop course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) of variable length for biology courses and labs and for three non-biology courses, with a shared repository of curricula for in-person, hybrid and remote teaching.
Melanie Will Cole
Central New Mexico Community College, NM·Education Research
Implement and examine a hybrid undergraduate research experience that combines a course-based research class with a stipend-supported apprenticeship, enrolling ten place-bound students per year in a year-long series of special project courses.
Arthur Sikora
Nova Southeastern University, FL·Education Research
Identify the supports for and barriers to implementing and sustaining the BASIL biochemistry CURE across institution types, using faculty surveys, implementation plans and semi-structured interviews.
The school
Kansas City Kansas Community College: 1 labs on PI Pages.
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