A Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site Program on Engineering Education Research

This paper describes a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site program that aims to provide undergraduate students with experiences in engineering education research (i.e., education research in the context of engineering). This paper provides an overview of the program and briefly describes the common intellectual focus of this REU Site program. Over the past two years, a total of 16 undergraduate students, seven graduate mentors, and five faculty mentors have actively participated in the program. Four important components of the program are described in this paper, including student recruitment and selection, REU seminars, weekly reflections, and REU research projects. The results of the project evaluation show that the program has made a positive impact on increasing education research skills and communication skills of the participating REU students. Eighty percent of the participating REU students reported that the research projects they worked increased their motivation and confidence for continuing to engage in engineering education research.