The scientific rules, roles, and values that life sciences doctoral students want to see upheld by undergraduate researchers

Abstract

Articulating the rules, roles, and values that are expected of undergraduate researchers is important as we strive to create a more accessible path into the scientific community. Rules refer to skills required of scientists, roles refer to behaviors consistent with the expectations of a scientist, and values refer to beliefs of the scientific community. Doctoral student mentors have great potential to serve as agents of influence for undergraduate researchers as undergraduates engage in the process of learning to be a scientist through legitimate peripheral participation. As such, we argue that doctoral students are partially responsible for identifying and promoting the rules, roles, and values that undergraduate researchers develop in scientific research. However, few studies have examined what rules, roles, and values are appreciated, or perceived as desirable, by doctoral students and thus expected of undergraduate research mentees. To address this gap, we surveyed 835 life sciences doctoral students who had mentored or would eventually mentor undergraduate researchers. We assessed what qualities and beliefs they appreciate in undergraduate researchers and what advice they would give to undergraduates to maximize their experiences in research. We analyzed their open-ended responses using inductive coding and identified specific rules (e.g., effectively communicate), roles (e.g., demonstrate a strong work ethic), and values (e.g., be driven by intrinsic passion) that doctoral students wrote about. We used logistic regression to determine whether demographics predicted differences among doctoral student responses. We found that gender, race/ethnicity, and college generation status predicted what rules, roles, and values doctoral students appreciated and advised undergraduates to adopt. This research illuminates what rules, roles, and values undergraduate researchers are expected to uphold and identifies relationships between mentor identities and the advice they pass on to students.