Race and Gender Differences in Undergraduate Research Mentoring Structures and Research Outcomes.

Participating in undergraduate research with mentorship from faculty may be particularly important for ensuring the persistence of women and minority students in science. Yet many life science undergraduates at research universities are mentored by graduate or postdoctoral researchers (i.e., postgraduates). We surveyed a national sample of undergraduate life science researchers about the mentoring structure of their research experiences and the outcomes they realized from participating in research. We observed two common mentoring structures: an open triad with undergraduate-postgraduate and postgraduate-faculty ties but no undergraduate-faculty tie, and a closed triad with ties among all three members. We found that men and underrepresented minority (URM) students are significantly more likely to report a direct tie to their faculty mentors (closed triad) than women, white, and Asian students. We also determined that mentoring structure was associated with differences in student outcomes. Women's mentoring structures were associated with their lower scientific identity, lower intentions to pursue a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) PhD, and lower scholarly productivity. URM students' mentoring structures were associated with higher scientific identity, greater intentions to pursue a STEM PhD, and higher scholarly productivity. Asian students reported lower scientific identity and intentions to pursue a STEM PhD, which were unrelated to their mentoring structures.

A Social Capital Perspective on the Mentoring of Undergraduate Life Science Researchers: An Empirical Study of Undergraduate-Postgraduate-Faculty Triads.

Undergraduate researchers at research universities are often mentored by graduate students or postdoctoral researchers (referred to collectively as "postgraduates") and faculty, creating a mentoring triad structure. Triads differ based on whether the undergraduate, postgraduate, and faculty member interact with one another about the undergraduate's research. Using a social capital theory framework, we hypothesized that different triad structures provide undergraduates with varying resources (e.g., information, advice, psychosocial support) from the postgraduates and/or faculty, which would affect the undergraduates' research outcomes. To test this, we collected data from a national sample of undergraduate life science researchers about their mentoring triad structure and a range of outcomes associated with research experiences, such as perceived gains in their abilities to think and work like scientists, science identity, and intentions to enroll in a PhD program. Undergraduates mentored by postgraduates alone reported positive outcomes, indicating that postgraduates can be effective mentors. However, undergraduates who interacted directly with faculty realized greater outcomes, suggesting that faculty interaction is important for undergraduates to realize the full benefits of research. The "closed triad," in which undergraduates, postgraduates, and faculty all interact directly, appeared to be uniquely beneficial; these undergraduates reported the highest gains in thinking and working like a scientist.