Winning Hearts and Minds: The Summer Research Opportunities Program and the Pursuit of
This research describes the experiences of students from populations underrepresented in higher education as they make the decision to apply to and attend graduate school. The study draws on a small sample of students who participated in the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) as undergraduates and are currently enrolled in graduate degree programs. Through the analysis of in-depth interviews with these students and large scale survey data collected from past SROP cohorts, this study asses the impact of the unique opportunity for graduate preparation these students received through SROP on their later goals, decisions, and achievements. It finds that the program has a positive impact on students' later decisions to apply to graduate schools, and that students draw on several resources gained from participation in the program during the graduate school application and enrollment process. The program had a particularly strong impact on students coming from undergraduate institutions that had little focus on research. By taking a more qualitative, ideographic approach, this study looks beyond the already well-documented outcomes of SROP and other such outreach programs to better understand the experiences of students within them and the process by which they achieve success.
School:
University of California, Berkeley
Department:
Sociology
Research Advisor:
William T. Trent
Department of Research Advisor:
Educational Policy Studies
Year of Publication:
2009