The data below summarizes the responses of students to surveys that were administered before and after the 2022 CVI Summer Research Program. This data was collected by the American Heart Association and compiled by Dr. Debbie Heard as part of the AHA SURE program.
The majority of CVI Summer Research students stated that participation in the program increased their likelihood of pursuing a career related to medicine or research.
Responses to “Participating in the Summer Research Training Program increased the likelihood that I will pursue a career in a field related to research or science.”
The figure to the right show the primary research-related activities that the students participated in as part of the CVI Summer Research Program.
Students responses to “Which of the following research-related activities did you participate in as part of your Summer Research Training Program?”
Students strongly valued being able to think about scientific problems, talk with faculty, and learning how to manage their responsibilities.
Students tanked the top three most valuable experiences for preparing for their future careers. The size of the circle and the number on the circle indicates the number of students who ranked that experience first, second, or third.
Students were asked to rate their confidence or agreement with 38 statements about their understanding of science, research skills, sense of ease and competence in performing research, sense of community, and understanding of open science concepts. They were asked the same questions before the program started (PRE) and after the program ended (POST).
We transformed the responses to a numerical scale from 1 (’Strongly ‘Disagree’ or ‘Not At All Confident’) to 5 (’Strongly Agree’ or ‘Extremely Confident’).
For each survey, we calculated the averaged responses across all 38 statements for each student. In the figure to the right, each dot responses the average numerical response for one student.
The average across students of average pre-program self-assessed “scores” of 38 research-related qualities was 3.6. The average post-program “score” was 4.1.
Students experienced an overall significant gain in confidence, skill, knowledge, and sense of community after completing the CVI Summer Research Program.
We organized the 38 statements into 5 categories:
Students reported gains across each of these categories.
Below, we show the percentage of different responses for each of the 38 statements, separated by category. Responses to the PRE survey statements are shown on the left and POST survey statements on the right. Responses are sorted from ‘highest’ to ‘lowest’ average score.
