Biomedical Freshman Research Initiative: A Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

ABSTRACT

The Biomedical Freshman Research Initiative (BFRI) is a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), a hispanic-serving institution. Our analysis showed that BFRI participation was associated with retention in the BS in Biomedical Science program and at UTRGV. No significant difference in academic achievement and graduation in 4 years was observed. The results from this study suggest that BFRI is a promising avenue to provide more opportunities for students to be exposed to and participate in research early on and retain them in the science pipeline at a lower cost and manpower.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-secondary education
• quantitative research
• science education
• Latino/a children and families
• curriculum

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the assistance from the UTRGV Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the UTRGV Department of Strategic Analysis & Institutional Reporting including Julio Ibarra and Marcelo Paredes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.