Comparing the Outcomes of 'Pre-CURE' Compared to Inquiry-Based Introductory Biology Labs

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are increasing being taught to undergraduates across institutions and topics and offer an opportunity for more students to participate in authentic research. There are many types of "CUREs" with varying degrees of including all five elements identified by Auchincloss et al. (2014) as defining a CURE course. Even when authentic research labs do not include all the elements of a CURE, they still provide students an opportunity to engage in the process of science and could be an important transition from inquiry-style labs to full CURE labs. In this paper, we call labs that provide research experiences, yet may include lower-stakes, non-iterative or narrowly relevant results "pre-CURE" labs. We sought to assess if students were developing a better understanding of experimental design and scientific argumentation in a pre-CURE vs. a guided-inquiry version of the same introductory biology lab, as evidenced by scientific paper writing assignments. Students in guided-inquiry labs performed better on argumentation themes (p=0.01549) in their lab reports, conceivably because they had narrower variable selection. However, students learned more about experimental design in the pre-CURE course (p=1.77-12). Particularly because the pre-CURE gave the students the opportunity to fail by allowing them to design experiments that did not yield results.