Liping Liu
Lawrence Technological University, MI·Education Research
Undergraduate research experiences give engineering students hands-on, real-world learning. How much students gain, however, depends heavily on the quality of the mentoring they get.
- Fields
Education Research
Engineering
- Topics
undergraduate research experiences
research mentorship
engineering education
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- Implement an existing toolkit of training videos, activities, instructor guides and workshops for engineering undergraduate research mentors through a new Undergraduate Research Excellence Network that coaches mentors in making adoption plans.
- Study how the toolkit is implemented and adapted across five institutions using an emergent design studies approach, focusing on student self-assessment, reflective thinking and mindset.
- Test whether these processes are linked to student autonomy, self-confidence in research, and the ability to connect research experience with coursework, and whether earlier learning gains generalize across institutions.
More about the research
This project asks whether structured reflection and mentoring tools can reliably improve learning and engagement in engineering undergraduate research across different schools.
Why it matters
Engineering students and their research mentors could benefit from tested, freely available training and reflection tools. These tools aim to make undergraduate research more accessible and better mentored. The findings could also inform new teaching approaches that use student mindset to support hands-on learning in STEM.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Anya Goodman
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, CA·Education Research
Adapt an established organizational-psychology work-design survey to the context of STEM undergraduate research experiences through iterative interviews with subject matter experts, including bilingual participants.
Gregory Nelson
University of Maine, ME·Education Research·Early-career
Use design-based research to iteratively develop and evaluate peer reflection groups that build professional skills including iterative improvement, lifelong learning, GenAI use and psychological safety, with minimal instructor time.
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
Lawrence Technological University: 3 labs on PI Pages, $8M a year on research.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.