GSE/RES--Community College Pathways to STEM Degrees and Careers for Women and Underrepresented Minorities

智力优势：教育发展中心公司（EDC）提议开展一项为期三年的研究项目，旨在了解通过社区大学教育为女性提供STEM进步的机会。目标是确定有助于女性成功招聘、进步和完成社区大学STEM学位和证书的个人和制度因素。研究人员将检查来自国家教育统计中心（NCES）的开始中学后调查（BPS）的数据，并将对两所STEM丰富和支持的社区学院的四个STEM社区学院项目（两个终端副学士课程和两个转学学位课程）进行案例研究。而女性呢?尽管人们对女性在四年制和研究生STEM项目中的经历进行了广泛的分析，但女性在STEM社区大学项目中的经历仍未得到充分的研究。学生参与、生命历程和性别模式等理论已经被开发出来，以理解女性在四年制STEM课程中的代表性不足，这些理论在社区学院STEM背景下可能会有不同的应用，因为社区学院的学生年龄较大，非住宿，来自低收入家庭，与四年制大学的学生相比，更有可能工作。此外，支持STEM社区大学教育的制度体系还没有得到充分的研究。本项目提出的定量研究将全面考察女性和男性在STEM社区大学教育中的经历，同时测试有关STEM教育中性别差异的学生参与度、生命历程和性别图式理论的假设。案例研究还将分析支持STEM社区大学教育的政策、项目和实践，以及这些机构支持在多大程度上满足女性的需求。定量研究将确定促进社区大学STEM进步的因素以及男女之间的差异，定性分析将探讨这些性别差异持续存在的原因。更广泛的影响：社区大学往往缺乏资源和人员来进行机构和项目有效性研究，这是理解、评估和加强对男女STEM教育支持系统所必需的。通过描述支持STEM女性的社区学院系统中哪些是有效的，哪些是缺乏的，以及预测STEM社区学院进步的因素，本研究将为教育工作者和管理人员确定最佳分配稀缺资源的领域，用于项目，实践和政策制定。此外，通过研究制定的学生调查和焦点小组协议，以衡量学生对STEM社区大学项目的参与度，以及评估如何因性别而变化，可以用作衡量社区大学校园STEM支持有效性的试点工具。面谈规程也可作为衡量支助妇女制度有效性的试点工具。这是STEM教育。

Intellectual Merit: Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) proposes to conduct a three-year research project that seeks to understand opportunities for STEM advancement for women through community college education. The goal is to identify the individual and institutional factors that contribute to women's successful recruitment, progress, and completion of community college STEM degrees and certificates. The researchers will examine data from the Beginning Post-Secondary Surveys (BPS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and will conduct case studies of four STEM community college programs (two terminal associate degree programs and two transfer degree programs) at two STEM-rich and supported community colleges. While women?s experiences in four-year and graduate STEM programs have been extensively analyzed, the experiences of women in STEM community college programs remains under-examined. Theories such as student engagement, life course, and gender schema, which have been developed to understand women's underrepresentation in four-year STEM programs, may apply differently in the community college STEM context where students are older, non-residential, from lower income families, and more likely to work compared with students who begin college in a four-year institution. Further, institutional systems of support for STEM community college education have not been adequately studied. Quantitative research proposed in this project will provide a comprehensive look at women's and men's experiences in STEM community college education while testing hypotheses concerning student engagement, life course, and gender schema theories of gender differences in STEM education. The case study research will additionally provide analysis of the policies, programs, and practices that support STEM community college education and the extent to which these institutional supports meet women's needs. While the quantitative research will identify the factors that contribute to progress through community college STEM and differences for men and women, the qualitative analysis will explore why these gender differences persist.Broader Impacts: Community colleges often lack the resources and staffing to conduct the institutional and program effectiveness research required to understand, evaluate, and strengthen systems of support for women's and men's STEM education. By delineating what is working and what is lacking in community college systems of support for women in STEM as well as the factors that predict STEM community college progress, this research will identify areas for educators and administrators to best allocate scarce resources for program, practice, and policy development. Furthermore, the student survey and focus group protocol developed through the research to gauge student engagement in STEM community college programs and how assessments vary by gender may be used as a piloted tool to measure the effectiveness of STEM support on community college campuses. The interview protocols may also serve as a piloted tool to measure the effectiveness of systems of support for women?s STEM education.