Transition of Virtual Research Group Modules to a Remote Teaching Environment

A persistent dilemma facing modern undergraduate education across institutions is balancing the
desirability of offering research experience to students as part of the curriculum against the high
resource cost of providing such laboratory space, materials, and technical equipment. Hands-on
research experience is widely recognized as one of the most important activities for the preparation and
retention of science and engineering students. Unfortunately, undergraduate research in a lab group
requires a significant investment of faculty and graduate student resources and mentoring. The closest
practical analog to lab group experience, lab courses, require many hours and staffing resources to
execute. As undergraduate enrollment continues to grow, these issues will only become more acute.
Further, lab courses often lack the key discovery-based skills that are the most central and enjoyable
aspects of research. This disconnect was highlighted as one of five key areas for improvement in higher
education by The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s in their 2012 report, and
there has been a recent trend in discovery-based lab projects and computer-based gamified studies.
Virtual research group (VRG) modules are designed to simulate the investigative aspects of the research
process while incorporating peer-learning, project ownership, and diverse role models, without any
laboratory and minimal computational resources. The primary target audience of these VRG modules is
advanced high school or first-year undergraduate students to improve early retention of students when
the fewest research opportunities are available to them. These modules have been implemented as a
part of the New Jersey Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology (NJGSET) as an elective course
studying materials analysis and run successfully each summer from 2016. The NJGSET program brings
some of NJ’s most talented students to Rutgers University for a program of courses and in-lab research.
With the recent restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 NJGSET program was moved
remote, demanding that both the courses and the research be moved to remote delivery. This presents
a unique challenge and test for the low-resource VRG modules to see if they could be effectively
simulate the research process without in-person interaction. Through the use of student facilitators and
breakout rooms, students were able to continue to interact in groups, and the addition of extra activities
allowed for the scaffolding to be implemented without additional in-class time. Through post survey
assessment this remote VRG was compared to past offerings. While students expressed that they would
have preferred a hands-on activity, metrics for interest in future research and materials both compared
favorably to past VRGs. Most importantly, students reported equal enjoyment of the VRG activity as
compared to their in-lab research in both the in-person and remote formats of each.