MAvERICS was first piloted in 2021 as “Rigor and Reproducibility Side-Projects”. 16 students participated under the supervision of three early career scientists and one staff member. The four teams ran projects on several metascience subjects, as listed below. Each project includes, where applicable, a link to the public Open Science Foundation (OSF) description of the project and the public protocol or pre-registration.
MAvERICS was inspired by the Project Tier 2021 Spring Symposium, and especially the keynote seminar on Teaching Replication by Dr. Nicole Janz.
CVI asked all students who participated in the summer research program to describe their level of understanding of reproducible scientific methods both before and after the program. Students’ self-reported understanding of reproducible science concepts increased after their summer research training.
Distribution of CVI summer student self-reported levels of agreement with statements regarding their understanding of reproducible science. Distributions are shown for responses collected before the program started (PRE) and after the program was completed (POST).
I honestly loved this part of the program. I learned so much, gained new skills, and it felt like such a safe place to grow and become better at the scientific process.
I learned a lot about starting a research project from scratch and doing pubmed queries and all that fun stuff. I also really liked being able to work with other students because sometimes working on your own can be a little lonely and intimidating. overall I feel like it was a super amazing program and one of the parts I valued most since it allowed me to pursue something I am really passionate about which is this disparity in research. I like the initial flexibility of allowing us to pursue the project how we wanted to by giving us a very vague topic.
I really liked that we were able to start the projects from the beginning and see them take shape.
Socially, I really liked being in this smaller group because I felt that I got a chance to get closer to my peers. I also loved the side project because it provided a sense of stability - I got to see a project start and really be a part of the process to develop and (hopefully) take it to finish. Even though I was uncertain about things such as data analysis or pre-registration, I felt that I was involved and that I understood enough that I could move forward confidently. Having this project not only trained me extensively but also gave me a sense of stability when I felt a lot of hesitancy in my other work with the lab. Encourage everyone to do a [MAvERICS] project!!!!! It's so cool and interesting.
I enjoyed the [MAvERICS] project. It gave me a chance the get more research experience outside of my main project. Since it was optional it was nice to know everyone was interested.
<aside> 💡 Team leads appreciate that they could see that the students were gaining critical analysis skills and becoming better at reading science.
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<aside> 💡 Team leads learned about the pre-registration process - an open and reproducible science practice that they were unfamiliar with before.
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<aside> 💡 Team leads thought the projects were good for mentoring experience in a way which is very different than teaching a class.
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<aside> 💡 Team leads also thought the program helped them with reading and thinking critically, as well as identifying trends in articles.
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