ULAB:An Accessible, Peer-Led Framework for Facilitating Undergraduate Research Experiences in Physics

Undergraduate research is a critical component of students' training in physics. We present a unique case study of a peer-led undergraduate research experience: The Undergraduate Lab at Berkeley (ULAB) program. ULAB is a student-run, research training course at UC Berkeley. The ULAB framework emphasizes acquisition and application of research skills in a manner that is accessible to all students. The program utilizes a flexible curriculum to teach essential research skills to students from diverse backgrounds and with varying levels of research experience. Students then have the opportunity to apply these skills to a year-long research project. They form teams lead by a senior undergraduate mentor and design a project, write a research proposal, carry out the project with funding from the University, and present their results at a department poster symposium. The focus of our case study is a 1-year study (n = 60 ULAB students) of the effectiveness of the ULAB framework in (1) building competency in research skills, (2) building confidence in research skills, (3) fostering students' sense of belonging within the research community. Using qualitative and quantitative techniques developed by the Berkeley Undergraduate Research Evaluation Tools (BURET) project, a pre and post survey is conducted throughout the duration of the program. Here we present the results of our case study and argue that ULAB is an effective, accessible, and novel framework for facilitating undergraduates taking their first step into research.