Table 1.
Data collection summary.
Table 2.
Number of sections taught and student study participants for each GTA.
Fig 1.
GTAs varied in their ability to create a positive learning environment.
Student descriptions of their GTA’s competency during focus groups were coded to compare the frequency at which students describe their GTA’s actions as highly competent (“Above and beyond”), meeting expectations (“Baseline”), not meeting expectations (“Insufficient”) or highly incompetent or destructive of the classroom environment (“Help!”). GTAs are ordered from A to J by decreasing proportions of positive (i.e., “Above and beyond” and “Baseline”) codes. More than half of the statements made by students of GTAs A through F represented these positive environment codes, while more than half of the statements made by students G through J represented adverse (“Insufficient” or “Help”) codes.
Fig 2.
GTAs emphasized different lab priorities.
(A) The percent of students overall who reported that each item was among the most (blue bar) or least (orange bar) prioritized for their GTA. Students reported that items near the top of the panel (i.e., "Scientific practices"; “Understanding bacteriophage system”) were most prioritized by their GTA, while items near the bottom of the panel (i.e., “Lecture reinforcement”; “Career clarification”) were least prioritized. (B) The percent of each GTA’s students who reported that specific items were most prioritized by their GTA. (C) The percent of each GTA’s students who reported that specific items were least prioritized by their GTA. Letters in (B) and (C) identify the students of individual GTAs, demonstrating that students of different GTAs differed in their perspectives of the importance of each item to their GTAs.
Fig 3.
GTAs impact student perceptions of essential CURE constructs, and perceive greater presence of CURE constructs in the curriculum than their students.
Grey bars represent the summed average (± 1 SD) of the three constructs measured in the student LCAS (Collaboration, Iteration, and Broader Relevance/Novel Discovery) for students of each GTA. Students of GTAs A, B, and C perceive significantly higher elements of research in their classes than do students of GTAs G and H. Yellow circles represent the summed average of the three constructs for each GTA’s LCAS score, allowing for comparison of the GTA’s perspective of facilitating Collaboration, Iteration, and Broader Relevance/Novel Discovery to student’s perceptions of experiencing those research elements. Most GTAs perceive similar or slightly higher levels of research elements in their CURE classrooms as their students. However, three GTAs (F, G, and J) perceive notably higher levels of these research elements in their class than their students.
Table 3.
Alignment of student and GTA perceptions of the importance of individual CURE constructs*.
Fig 4.
GTAs impact how students perceive the purpose of participating in a CURE.
We coded student reflection questions to identify the proportion of each GTA’s students who believed that the university employed CUREs in introductory biology labs for student-centered purposes or non-student-centered purposes. Letters above bars indicate significant differences in the proportion of a GTA’s students who believe that the CURE has a non-student centered purpose: bars that do not share a common letter indicate a significant difference in perceived purpose for students of the indicated GTA. Most students believed that the CURE served a student-centered purpose; however, students of GTAs C and F more frequently reported that the CURE served a non-student centered purpose.