This article is published in the February 2025 issue.

NSF CISE REU 2023 Annual Report: Student Characteristics of REU Participants

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By Brendan Kane, Research Associate

In an effort to keep the computing community informed of latest research on formal research experiences, the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently released an annual report on the summer 2023 data collection efforts from undergraduate students in formal research experiences such as NSF CISE REU Sites and Supplements, DREU, and more. The findings of the report focus on the students and institutions that participated in a formal research experience program in 2023. Specifically, results focus on student’s backgrounds, home institutions, and pre-college and college experiences.

Four figures that show the disability status, first-generation college status, pre-college computer science background and pre-college mathematics background.

 The preceding infographic focuses on the characteristics of the students who participated in REUs that were evaluated by CERP. Specifically, it shows the demographic breakdown of students’ reported disability status and the percentage who are first-generation college students. The infographic also presents results on the academic background of participating students focusing specifically on their pre-college computer science and mathematics course experiences. Learn this and even more by viewing the full report linked here.

 

Notes:

The Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) collected the data analyzed for this infographic via the NSF CISE REU Evaluation Project. The sample includes 725 undergraduate students at 268 unique institutions who participated in a formal research experience during the summer of 2023. 

The data for each figure in the infographic were pulled from the following questions: 

  • What type of disability do you have? Please check all that apply.
  • What is the highest level of education attained by any of your parent(s)/guardians?
  • Which of the following experiences did you have prior to entering an undergraduate program? Select all that apply.
  • Which of the following mathematics courses did you take prior to entering an undergraduate program? Select all that apply.

 

This analysis is brought to you by CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). CERP provides social science research and comparative evaluation for the computing community. Subscribe to the CERP newsletter here. Check out CERP’s activities and find out how to engage on CERP’s website.

The information presented in this infographic is based upon work supported by the US National Science Foundation grant numbers #2036717 and #2335072.  Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.