Education Research Project: NSU Evaluative Research Study of STEM Programs for Improved Retention, Progression and Graduation

教育研究项目：新西伯利亚州立大学 STEM 项目的评估研究，以提高保留率、升学率和毕业率

• 批准号: 0624929
• 负责人: Malikah Abdullah-Israel
• 金额: $ 95.72万
• 依托单位: Norfolk State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-09-15 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0624929&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Education; Research; Project; NSU; Evaluative

Norfolk State University (NSU) will conduct an educational research project that will provide a comprehensive formal evaluation of a NSU Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) student scholarship program (DNIMAS). We believe that such an undertaking is necessary at this point-in time because there is a considerable history of minority STEM enrichment programs that have largely reported success, but have reported such success anecdotally and have not disseminated their findings in a manner that can help others to systematically adopt those educational strategies and philosophies that contribute towards the creation of a significant increase in the number of underrepresented students pursuing STEM training and career entry [Matsui, 2003]. The current deficit of information detailing successful minority STEM training is not necessarily the fault of institutions and organizations that have sponsored or implemented such programs, but rather results from the inherent difficulty in maintaining longitudinal connections with students, who participated in special STEM training programs [Brainard and Carlin, 1999]. Also, the analysis of many formal evaluations of minority STEM training initiatives typically focus on students' outcomes and behaviors, and do not usually conduct in-depth queries of all personnel, such as professors, administrators, counselors, and educational support staff, who also play a significant role in carrying out STEM education programs. This research project will produce a very detailed analysis of the scholarship program with all of the obvious and not-so-obvious features of this training environment. Some of what might be called obvious features would include mandatory tutorials, seminars, and externships, to name a few; while the not-so-obvious features would be the formation of student study and support groups, faculty mentoring and role modeling, and the extent of family and community connectedness. Our research project will utilize a variety of assessment instruments and consultations that have been recognized to provide comprehensive and reliable programmatic data. These assessment instruments will measure such parameters as attitudes towards knowledge and learning, academic performance, career awareness, knowledge of study skills, meta-cognitive levels, nature of their interactions with other STEM students and faculty, personal confidence, academic and personal support from family and friends, utilization of University resources, choice of and utilization of problems-solving strategies, Internet reliance, and willingness to take risks. This research will evaluate the effectiveness of the full scholarship program and examine it as a proposed model to support retention, progression, and graduation of other students in STEM and other university programs. Also this research will evaluate the NSU Engineering Department's core faculty and integrated curriculum program, where retention is addressed in the classroom by emphasizing the unity of all knowledge through the use of an integrated curriculum. A series of research questions will serve as the framework for developing a comprehensive set of program evaluation metrics. It is important that the defined metrics that will be determined by this proposed research project measure program strategies, activities and results that are an integral part of the targeted NSU STEM programs. The intent of this research project is to demonstrate that practical applications and research are interconnected as well as to ensure that students completing NSU programs in engineering and ultimately all STEM degree programs at NSU will be both "workforce ready" as well as have the capability to transfer their knowledge to troubleshooting and to the design of new systems and applications. The core faculty team have well-developed and synergistic approaches that will address weaknesses that students may encounter in the gateway courses. Furthermore, the integrated curriculum approach may prove to allow students to understand the relevance and interrelatedness of topics as they are presented, rather than having to wait months and sometimes years before they are able to realize how to use various tools that they may have learned earlier. In many STEM departments, even though there is now considerable effort being placed on tutorial support for students enrolled in gateway courses, there still needs to be more emphasis on pedagogy and presentation skills by faculty teaching the gateway courses. The expected impact is to determine the critical success factors that lead to an increase in the progression and retention rates of students enrolled in gateway STEM courses at NSU and to ultimately increase the graduation rates of all students in STEM fields.

诺福克州立大学(NSU)将开展一个教育研究项目，对NSU科学技术工程数学(STEM)学生奖学金项目(DNIMAS)进行全面的正式评估。我们认为，在这个时间点上，这样的承诺是必要的，因为在相当长的历史上，少数民族STEM充实计划基本上报告了成功，但也只是零星地报告了这种成功，并没有以一种能够帮助其他人系统地采用那些有助于显著增加寻求STEM培训和职业生涯的代表不足的学生数量的教育战略和理念的方式传播他们的发现[Matsui，2003]。目前缺乏详细说明成功的少数民族STEM培训的信息不一定是赞助或实施此类计划的机构和组织的过错，而是由于与参加特殊STEM培训计划的学生保持纵向联系的内在困难[Brainard和Carlin，1999]。此外，对少数民族STEM培训计划的许多正式评估的分析通常侧重于学生的结果和行为，而通常不会深入询问所有人员，如教授、行政人员、辅导员和教育支持人员，他们在实施STEM教育计划方面也发挥着重要作用。这项研究项目将对奖学金计划进行非常详细的分析，包括这种培训环境的所有明显和不太明显的特征。一些可能被称为明显的特征包括强制性的教程、研讨会和外部奖学金，仅举几例；而不那么明显的特征将是学生学习和支持小组的形成、教师指导和角色示范，以及家庭和社区联系的程度。我们的研究项目将利用公认的各种评估工具和协商来提供全面和可靠的方案数据。这些评估工具将测量对知识和学习的态度、学业成绩、职业意识、学习技能知识、元认知水平、他们与其他STEM学生和教职员工互动的性质、个人自信、来自家人和朋友的学业和个人支持、大学资源利用、解决问题策略的选择和利用、互联网依赖和冒险意愿。这项研究将评估全额奖学金计划的有效性，并将其作为支持STEM和其他大学计划中其他学生留住、升学和毕业的拟议模式。此外，这项研究还将评估NSU工程系的核心教师和综合课程计划，在该计划中，通过强调通过使用综合课程来统一所有知识，在课堂上解决留住问题。一系列研究问题将作为制定一套全面的计划评估指标的框架。重要的是，这项拟议的研究项目将确定的已定义的指标应衡量作为目标NSU STEM计划组成部分的计划战略、活动和结果。这项研究项目的目的是证明实际应用和研究是相互联系的，并确保完成NSU工程课程的学生以及最终在NSU完成所有STEM学位课程的学生将既做好劳动力准备，又有能力将他们的知识转化为故障排除和新系统和应用程序的设计。核心教师团队有完善的协同方法，将解决学生在入门课程中可能遇到的弱点。此外，综合课程方法可能会使学生在提出主题时理解它们的相关性和相互关联性，而不是必须等待几个月，有时甚至几年才能意识到如何使用他们之前可能学到的各种工具。在许多STEM系，尽管现在已经花了相当大的努力为参加入门课程的学生提供辅导支持，但教授入门课程的教师仍然需要更多地强调教学方法和演讲技能。预期的影响是确定导致NSU STEM入门课程学生升学率和保留率上升的关键成功因素，并最终提高STEM领域所有学生的毕业率。