TY - JOUR T1 - Virtually the same? Evaluating the effectiveness of remote undergraduate research experiences JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2022.01.03.474815 SP - 2022.01.03.474815 AU - Riley A. Hess AU - Olivia A. Erickson AU - Rebecca B. Cole AU - Jared M. Isaacs AU - Silvia Alvarez-Clare AU - Jonathan Arnold AU - Allison Augustus-Wallace AU - Joseph C. Ayoob AU - Alan Berkowitz AU - Janet Branchaw AU - Kevin R. Burgio AU - Charles H. Cannon AU - Ruben Michael Ceballos AU - C. Sarah Cohen AU - Hilary Coller AU - Jane Disney AU - Van A. Doze AU - Margaret J. Eggers AU - Edwin L. Ferguson AU - Jeffrey J. Gray AU - Jean T. Greenberg AU - Alexander Hoffmann AU - Danielle Jensen-Ryan AU - Robert M. Kao AU - Alex C. Keene AU - Johanna E. Kowalko AU - Steven A. Lopez AU - Camille Mathis AU - Mona Minkara AU - Courtney J. Murren AU - Mary Jo Ondrechen AU - Patricia Ordoñez AU - Anne Osano AU - Elizabeth Padilla-Crespo AU - Soubantika Palchoudhury AU - Hong Qin AU - Juan Ramírez-Lugo AU - Jennifer Reithel AU - Colin A. Shaw AU - Amber Smith AU - Rosemary J. Smith AU - Fern Tsien AU - Erin L. Dolan Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/05/2022.01.03.474815.abstract N2 - In-person undergraduate research experiences (UREs) promote students’ integration into careers in life science research. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted institutions hosting summer URE programs to offer them remotely, raising questions about whether undergraduates who participate in remote research can experience scientific integration. To address this, we investigated indicators of scientific integration for students who participated in remote life science URE programs in summer 2020. We found that these students experienced gains in their scientific self-efficacy and scientific identity similar to results reported for in-person UREs. We also found that these students perceived high benefits and low costs of doing research at the outset of their programs, and their perceptions did not change despite the remote circumstances. Yet, their perceptions differed by program, indicating that programs differentially affected students’ perceptions of the costs of doing research. Finally, we observed that students with prior research experience made greater gains in self-efficacy and identity, as well as in their perceptions of the alignment of their values with those of the scientific community, in comparison to students with no prior research experience. This finding suggests that additional programming may be needed for undergraduates with no prior experience to benefit from remote research.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -