Evaluation Tools: Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA)

URSSA Logo with a bear and the Big Dipper constellation

URSSA is an online survey instrument for use in evaluating student outcomes of undergraduate research experiences in the sciences. The URSSA survey items have been thoroughly tested and the instrument is available for research and evaluation.

To learn more about URSSA, read the FAQs and review the survey items (text file in MS Word or more compact PDF).

For URSSA validity information, see 

  • Weston, T. J., & Laursen, S. L. (2015).  The Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA):  Validation for use in program evaluation.  CBE-Life Sciences Education, 14(3), ar33. DOI 10.1187/cbe.14-11-0206 http://www.lifescied.org/content/14/3/ar33.full  [open access]

For background on the URSSA instrument, please see our other publications on assessing undergraduate research.

To use URSSA, please review the FAQs, especially the how-to advice. This file has the text of questions and answer choices for the basic instrument, and shows the Qualtrics layout. You can use your text from an old salgsite data file, if you previously customized the questions. This file shows the original layout on the salgsite platform. You can email Sandra Laursen (Sandra DOT Laursen AT colorado DOT edu) to get a Qualtrics import file in QSF format (instructions here; CU's web policies do not allow us to post the QSF file here).  

Current status, as of July 2024 

The URSSA instrument remains a validated and useful tool for studying undergraduate research experiences. However, the web platform that once supported it has been retired. The URSSA was previously housed on the salgsite.net web platform designed for the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) instrument. Historically, this platform provided online tools that enable you to customize and administer the instrument, gather anonymous responses from your students, and review survey results in summarized or spreadsheet formats. The salgsite.net web platform is no longer considered secure by IT experts, and has been retired. New data cannot be collected on this platform. Visit salgsite.net for more info and instructions on how to retrieve past data. 

BIO REU users: Please contact your program officer for instructions.

Other URSSA users: We suggest you administer the survey on a local survey platform such as Qualtrics. 

We were caught off guard by this news too, and we apologize for your trouble.

Acknowledgements

NSF Logo of world with people holding hands circling it.

The URSSA team comes from the University of Colorado at Boulder and includes Anne-Barrie Hunter, Tim Weston, Heather Thiry and Sandra Laursen. We thank the SALG team and all the students, faculty, and program directors who helped us test and refine URSSA. Jeanne Mitchell developed our logo.

Development and testing of URSSA has been supported by the National Science Foundation through its Divisions of Chemistry and Undergraduate Education, the Biological Sciences Directorate, and the Office of Multidisciplinary Affairs, under grant #CHE-0548488. 

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations are those of the researchers and do not necessarily represent the official views, opinions, or policy of the National Science Foundation.

Additional support was provided by the Biological Sciences Initiative and the NIH Scholars program, both at CU Boulder, through their grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health.