Progress towards a framework for Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) in Physics.

Undergraduate research experiences have been shown to offer significant benefits to students, particularly students from marginalized groups. However, the over-subscription of traditional research opportunities combined with systemic barriers prevent many from participating in these experiences. A promising alternative are course-based undergraduate research experiences, or CUREs. CUREs are shown to have similar outcomes to traditional undergraduate research experiences, while reducing the barriers to participation and providing an authentic research experience to an entire cohort of students . Within STEM disciplines, physics has been identified as underrepresented in CURE implementation and a field where CUREs could be added. The broad scope of our work is to identify the physics-specific challenges and opportunities for creating and sustaining CUREs in physics programs to be able to support more CUREs being offered. As a first step, we conducted a series of interviews with physics faculty members from multiple institutions to collect faculty opinions and experiences with learning outcomes, sustainability of curricular changes, and the hurdles and opportunities to sustainably engage them and their students in CUREs. We will present results and findings from these interviews and the next steps in developing the framework and a second CURE at our own institution.