PMC9514618_01
PMC9514618_02
GTAs varied in their ability to create a positive learning environment.. Student descriptions of their GTA's competency during focus groups were coded to compare the frequency at which students describe their GTA's actions as highly competent ("Above and beyond"), meeting expectations ("Baseline"), not meeting expectations ("Insufficient") or highly incompetent or destructive of the classroom environment ("Help!"). GTAs are ordered from A to J by decreasing proportions of positive (i.e., "Above and beyond" and "Baseline") codes. More than half of the statements made by students of GTAs A through F represented these positive environment codes, while more than half of the statements made by students G through J represented adverse ("Insufficient" or "Help") codes.
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Within the focus groups, students of six GTAs (GTAs A through F) generally felt that their GTA was competent in promoting a positive classroom environment ("Above and beyond," or "Baseline" codes, Fig 1). Students of all GTAs described instances where their GTA was "Insufficient" in meeting student needs:though students of some GTAs described considerably more instances of this than others (Fig 1). We coded these instances as "Help!" (Fig 1).
GTAs emphasized different lab priorities.. (A) The percent of students overall who reported that each item was among the most (blue bar) or least (orange bar) prioritized for their GTA. Students reported that items near the top of the panel (i.e., "Scientific practices"; "Understanding bacteriophage system") were most prioritized by their GTA, while items near the bottom of the panel (i.e., "Lecture reinforcement"; "Career clarification") were least prioritized. (B) The percent of each GTA's students who reported that specific items were most prioritized by their GTA. (C) The percent of each GTA's students who reported that specific items were least prioritized by their GTA. Letters in (B) and (C) identify the students of individual GTAs, demonstrating that students of different GTAs differed in their perspectives of the importance of each item to their GTAs.
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Overall, given the options we provided, students perceived that developing basic lab skills, developing an understanding of the bacteriophage and host system, and being comfortable approaching the instructor with questions were highly prioritized by their GTAs (Fig 2A). In contrast, students reported that better understanding the content of the lecture portion of the course, learning if they are interested in a research career, and learning to troubleshoot problems independently were the least-emphasized course aspects (Fig 2A). However, students' perceptions how other items were prioritized varied widely by GTA (Fig 2B and 2C). For example, nearly 50% of GTA E's students believed that "collaboration" was one of the highest priorities of their GTA, while approximately 10% of GTA A and G's students listed collaboration as a priority (Fig 2B). Other areas of high variation between students' perceived experiences in a CURE are highlighted by the items included in Fig 2B, where 50% of GTA H's students said that being an "approachable instructor" was important to their GTA. Students also perceived variance in the items that were least prioritized by their GTAs (Fig 2C). Data from the lab priorities worksheets provided additional insight to student perceptions of individual CURE constructs as fostered by their GTA: on average, 61% (SD = 11.5%) of each GTA's students believe that learning Scientific Practices is one of the highest priorities to their GTA (Fig 2A; Table 3). While fewer students report that experiencing Collaboration (mean = 26.1% of each GTA's students, SD = 12.9%) and Iteration (mean = 23.2%, SD = 12.1%) are among the top priorities to their GTA, the standard deviation for these statistics is still quite high (Fig 2B). Iteration, few students report that Novel Discovery (mean = 13.7%, SD = 3.2%) and Broader Relevance (mean = 16.1%, SD = 2.5%) are highly prioritized by their GTAs:in fact, students more frequently reported that these items were least prioritized by their GTA, and this did not vary much by GTA (Fig 2A). In summary, students perceived that student engagement with Scientific Practices was important to their GTAs, Collaboration and Iteration were important to some of their GTAs, and Broader Relevance and Novel Discovery were not of particular importance to their GTAs (for supporting quotes, see Table 3).
GTAs impact student perceptions of essential CURE constructs, and perceive greater presence of CURE constructs in the curriculum than their students.. Grey bars represent the summed average (+- 1 SD) of the three constructs measured in the student LCAS (Collaboration, Iteration, and Broader Relevance/Novel Discovery) for students of each GTA. Students of GTAs A, B, and C perceive significantly higher elements of research in their classes than do students of GTAs G and H. Yellow circles represent the summed average of the three constructs for each GTA's LCAS score, allowing for comparison of the GTA's perspective of facilitating Collaboration, Iteration, and Broader Relevance/Novel Discovery to student's perceptions of experiencing those research elements. Most GTAs perceive similar or slightly higher levels of research elements in their CURE classrooms as their students. However, three GTAs (F, G, and J) perceive notably higher levels of these research elements in their class than their students.
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Though all three subscales had acceptable internal consistencies, fit indices for the final model fall at or slightly short of commonly used guidelines for "acceptable" model fit (for further discussion, see S2 Text), and thus our student survey data should be considered with caution. That said, we did find that students of GTAs A, B, and C scored significantly higher on the LCAS than students of GTAs G and H (Fig 3), implying that students in classes taught by GTAs A, B, and C perceive experiencing higher levels of research.
GTAs impact how students perceive the purpose of participating in a CURE.. We coded student reflection questions to identify the proportion of each GTA's students who believed that the university employed CUREs in introductory biology labs for student-centered purposes or non-student-centered purposes. Letters above bars indicate significant differences in the proportion of a GTA's students who believe that the CURE has a non-student centered purpose: bars that do not share a common letter indicate a significant difference in perceived purpose for students of the indicated GTA. Most students believed that the CURE served a student-centered purpose; however, students of GTAs C and F more frequently reported that the CURE served a non-student centered purpose.
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Kruskal-Wallis tests revealed that there were differences in the proportion of each GTA's students who believed the purpose of the CURE was student-centered or not student-centered (Fig 4).