Impact of Undergraduate Research Training Programs: An Illustrative Example of Finding a Comparison Group and Evaluating Academic and Graduate School Outcomes.

In this study, researchers at a large, urban, comprehensive minority-serving institution used propensity score matching to identify a unique comparison group to study academic and graduate school outcomes in students served by the National Institutes of Health-funded Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative. Acknowledging that students' self-selection biases may confound findings, the use of propensity methods to match students served with those who were not (but were otherwise eligible) provides a valuable tool for evaluators and practitioners to combat this challenge and better evaluate their effectiveness and impact on students' success. This study's findings indicate that BUILD participants had higher academic and graduate school success with regard to cumulative GPA, units attempted and completed, graduation status, and application and admission to graduate programs.

The BUILD Mentor Community at CSULB: A Mentor Training Program Designed to Enhance Mentoring Skills in Experienced Mentors.

The BUILD Mentoring Community (BMC) at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) was developed to enhance mentoring skills among our already experienced research faculty mentors. Designed in alignment with the published "Entering Mentoring" program, the 2015-2019 BMC trained 93 research mentors across 24 departments. Mentors discussed best practices in mentoring in a hybrid format during the first semester and completed a second semester independent project where refinements to their mentoring were piloted.