(RDE-BPR1) Veterans in STEM: Critical Analysis of the Factors Affecting Pathways to STEM Careers for Veterans Experiencing Disabilities

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This research study "Veterans in STEM: Critical Analysis of the Factors Affecting Pathways to STEM Careers for Veterans Experiencing Disabilities" is being conducted in response to the NSF's Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) program solicitation (NSF 12-542) for the RDE-Broadening Participation Research in STEM Education Level 1 (RDE-BPR1) track. The RDE-BPR1 track targets fundamental learning and educational research, early-stage studies, and design and development research. RDE-BPR1 projects enhance the understanding of the basic underlying issues affecting differential learning, participation, persistence and graduation rates of postsecondary students with disabilities in STEM education. This study focuses on broadening participation in STEM of veterans challenged by disabilities acquired due to experiences of combat trauma. Due to experiences of combat trauma, veterans often experience an array of challenges associated with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury such as learning, memory, sensory, or communication challenges. The target population of this study is veterans and student veterans experiencing these challenges, which are often "invisible" or unrecognized during the transition from military to civilian life. The goal of the proposed project is to investigate the critical factors impacting learning, participation, persistence, and graduation for veterans with disabilities pursuing undergraduate STEM degrees. The proposal targets one primary research question: What are the critical factors reported by veterans with invisible disabilities influencing their decisions to enroll and persist in STEM post-secondary undergraduate programs? Through a social ecological framework, this study is designed to investigate veteran-specific variables. Using fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM), a methodology that applies fuzzy set theory making causal cognitive maps computable, the data from the subjects will provide a clear image of the multiple dimensions (e.g., characteristics, timing, and intensity) influencing veterans with disabilities succeeding in STEM. The interdependencies, as well as measures of direct and indirect effects will be computable, displayed, and validated by the subjects. Data collection involves interviews with subjects who include (a) veterans with disabilities in STEM, and (b) veterans transitioning between military service and college. Data is being sampled from a national population of subjects. In the interview process, causal cognitive maps are being created and relationships between identified variables are given quantifiable direction and weight. In the final phase, the maps are integrated qualitatively and quantitatively to result in a network of the direct and indirect relationships between influencing variables. This project includes an independent and external evaluation, plans to disseminate the results and findings from the study to a broad research audience and the public, and a plan to expand the subject pool beyond veterans with disabilities in future studies that will address contextual variables in which student veterans with disabilities in, and interested in STEM, operate.