title: The Laboratory Course Assessment Survey: A Tool to Measure Three Dimensions of Research-Course Design.
abstract: Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are increasingly being offered as scalable ways to involve undergraduates in research. Yet few if any design features that make CUREs effective have been identified. We developed a 17-item survey instrument, the Laboratory Course Assessment Survey (LCAS), that measures students' perceptions of three design features of biology lab courses: 1) collaboration, 2) discovery and relevance, and 3) iteration. We assessed the psychometric properties of the LCAS using established methods for instrument design and validation. We also assessed the ability of the LCAS to differentiate between CUREs and traditional laboratory courses, and found that the discovery and relevance and iteration scales differentiated between these groups. Our results indicate that the LCAS is suited for characterizing and comparing undergraduate biology lab courses and should be useful for determining the relative importance of the three design features for achieving student outcomes.
authors.affiliation: *Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science, College of Natural Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 lisa.c.a@utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Lisa A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Corwin
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Runyon
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223.
authors.forename: Aspen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.affiliation: *Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science, College of Natural Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712.
authors.forename: Erin L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Dolan
mesh_terms: D001695:Biology / Q000193:education*; D003479:Curriculum; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007753:Laboratories; D008297:Male; D018794:Problem-Based Learning; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult