Evaluation, Integration and Institutionalization of Initiatives to Enhance STEM Student Success

马里兰大学巴尔的摩分校(UMBC)通过机构整合创新(I-3)教育研究项目调查了UMBC使用的四种干预技术的有效性和效率。这些技术旨在提高和提高STEM专业所有学生的毕业率和保留率，以及更广泛的教育经验，特别是来自代表性不足群体的学生。在这个项目中，UMBC进行了一项随机对照试验，比较各种干预措施的组合，以获得对它们对学生成功的影响以及它们的成本效益的严格经验估计。研究的四种干预措施是：1)社区学习小组；2)高地位教师的主动辅导和持续的保留风险评估；3)工作人员的主动指导和持续的保留风险评估；以及4)在Castle(自然和数学科学学院-CNMS-主动科学教学和学习环境)中的新生主动学习体验。除了进行广泛的分析以确定治疗效果外，该项目还比较各种干预措施的成本效益，以确定既有高影响又有低净成本的技术。成本效益分析将用于指导政策制定者决定如何最好地分配资源以实现特定目标。为了分析成本效益，UMBC为每次干预收集三种类型的成本：直接成本、间接成本和管理成本。最终，这项工作调查了这样一种假设，即扩大参与和提高保留率/毕业率的一个基本方法是确定以最低成本产生最大影响的成功干预措施的组成部分。该项目与高级管理人员、部门主任、教员、专业顾问和项目主要调查人员合作，以提高干预技术的成功及其在资助期后被制度化的可能性。它结合了领先的以理论为基础的干预组件和最先进的评估技术，以大幅提升有关干预措施的知识，从而提高学生在STEM学科中的成绩。将已确定的具有成本效益的技术整合到现有项目中，将使UMBC能够最大限度地利用稀缺资源，增加STEM毕业生并使其多样化，并为UMBC项目的制度化提供一个框架。

The University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Innovation through Institutional Integration (I-3) educational research project investigates the efficacies and efficiencies of four intervention techniques used at UMBC. These techniques are designed to increase and enhance the graduation and retention rates, and more broadly the educational experiences, of all students in the STEM disciplines particularly those from underrepresented groups. In this project, UMBC conducts a randomized control trial comparing various combinations of interventions to obtain rigorous empirical estimates of their impacts on student success, as well as their cost-effectiveness. The four interventions studied are: 1) Community-based study groups; 2) Pro-active mentoring and ongoing retention risk assessment by high-status faculty; 3) Pro-active mentoring and ongoing retention risk assessment by staff members; and 4) Freshman active learning experience in CASTLE (the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences -CNMS- Active Science Teaching and Learning Environment. In addition to carrying out extensive analyses to identify treatment effects, this project compares the cost-effectiveness of the various interventions in order to identify the techniques that have both high impact and low net costs. The cost-effectiveness analysis will be used to guide policy makers in deciding how to best allocate resources to achieve specific ends. To analyze cost-effectiveness, UMBC collects three types of costs for each intervention: direct, indirect, and administrative costs. Ultimately, this work investigates the assumption that an essential approach for expanding participation and increasing retention/graduation rates is to identify the components of successful interventions that have the greatest impact at the lowest cost.This project partners senior administrators, department chairs, faculty, professional advisors and project principal investigators to enhance the success of intervention techniques and their likelihood of being institutionalized beyond the funding period. It incorporates leading theory-based intervention components and state-of-the-art evaluation techniques to substantially advance knowledge regarding interventions that enhance student achievement in the STEM disciplines. The integration of the identified cost-effective techniques across extant programs will enable UMBC to make the best use of scarce resources, increase and diversify STEM graduates, and provide a framework for institutionalization of UMBC programs.