Leanne Lupone became involved in a research group called Project SPROUT, which examined instructional practices in large undergraduate lecture courses at UC Irvine, particularly in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects. Based on this work, Leanne decided to focus on investigating best practices in undergraduate lab courses. Her favorite part of the research experience was the potential for this project to redefine STEM education for the next generation of graduates. After graduation, Leanne will be a Fulbright scholar in Uruguay and teach high school science before pursuing a doctorate in curricular studies or educational policy.

There has been a recent movement toward inquiry in K-12 classrooms to increase critical, scientific thinking among young learners. However, undergraduate laboratory courses are not held under national standards like K-12 public schools. In order to compare student outcomes from inquiry-based labs with traditional lab courses, this project seeks a way to measure the amount of inquiry in a lab. Such an assessment would help create a standard across the country and evaluate the academic rigor of a science lab curriculum. This project developed a form called the Undergraduate Teaching Observation Protocol for Inquiry Assessment (UTOPIA), based on components of inquiry-based labs: collaboration, discovery, iteration, and use of the scientific method. It was found that inquiry depends strongly on the actions of both students and the lab instructor, making it difficult to differentiate between measuring the observed class and its curriculum. Tests revealed differences depending on whether the observing researcher focused on the intended curriculum or student and instructor interactions. Future research should determine whether the protocol should measure the curriculum or observations, modify UTOPIA to clarify this emphasis, pilot the protocol at multiple universities, and develop methods to transfer qualitative data from UTOPIA into quantifiable inquiry scores for comparison with student outcomes.

Mark Warschauer School of Education

In this outstanding study, Leanne Lupone developed the first observational protocol on the use of inquiry-based instruction in college lab courses and then piloted it to examine how it could be further improved. Her highly innovative project made an important contribution to our efforts to develop evidence-based approaches for assessing undergraduate instruction. This is a terrific example of how faculty-mentored undergraduate researchers can go beyond rote tasks to pursue their original ideas in research. I encourage other undergraduates to not only join research projects but also to take a proactive role in them. Your innovation and ideas are needed to help address the social, scientific, and educational challenges faced by our university and nation.