Forming Better STEM Career Trajectories: Sustaining and Scaling-Up CAP

这项研究调查了密歇根州立大学学院雄心计划(CAP)的可持续性，该计划是由NSF ITEST资金开发的，在增加专上学院或大学的学生数量方面表现出了希望。CAP是一项完整的高中干预措施，旨在促进一种上大学的文化，在这种文化中，向所有学生提供资源，鼓励他们上中学后的学习，特别强调STEM。CAP是一项综合计划，包括辅导和辅导、课程咨询和建议、经济援助计划和援助以及大学访问。可持续发展的修改包括将CAP的职能从大学的研究生和制定干预措施的教职员工转移到高中教师和职前教师。在以前的研究中，辅导将由同龄人提供，而不是由本科生提供。CAP研究性学习是一项研究内实验，使用学生对项目效果的估计。在这项研究中，学生将被随机鼓励通过使用有针对性的“推动”来接受CAP服务。督促是在鼓励设计的精神下进行的，其中由于不遵守规定，治疗意向与实际治疗并不完全一致，但分配机制仍然规定了治疗中的差异。轻推实验是以医疗保健研究中的可比试验为模型的。这项实验是一种标准的随机区组设计，学生被分配到被定义为学校的区组内进行治疗。鼓励学生使用CAP服务，其中包括一款应用程序，可以帮助他们决定哪所大学最适合他们。这项研究旨在检验CAP计划的有效性，并有可能为实践、政策和研究提供参考。很难对整个学校的干预措施进行研究，本研究正在测试通过将学生随机分配到干预中的实验条件来检测CAP干预效果的方法学。这项研究的潜在好处是黄金标准随机对照研究的替代方案，在这种研究中，学校是作业单位和分析单位。成功的发现支持了严格研究的可能性，样本中的学校比传统的权力分析显示的要少。

This study investigates the sustainability of the Michigan State University College Ambition Program (CAP) that has been developed with NSF ITEST funding and has demonstrated promise in increasing the number of students who attend postsecondary colleges or universities. The CAP is a whole school high school intervention that promotes a college-going culture in which all students are provided resources that encourage postsecondary attendance with a special emphasis on STEM. CAP is an integrated program including tutoring and mentoring, course counseling and advising, financial aid planning and assistance; and college visits. The modifications for sustainability include moving the CAP functions from the graduate students from the university and the faculty who developed the intervention to high school teachers and preservice teachers. Tutoring would be provided by peers rather than the undergraduate students in previous studies.The CAP research study is a within study experiment using student-level estimates of program effects. In this study, students will be randomlly encouraged to receive CAP services through the use of a targeted "nudge". The nudge is in the spirit of an encouragement design where intention to treat does not precisely coincide with actual treatment due to noncompliance, but the assignment mechanism still provides for variation in the treatment. The nudge experiment is modeled after comparable trials in health care research. The experiment is a type of standard randomized block design, in which students are assigned to treatments within blocks defined as schools. Students are encouraged to use CAP services which include an app that helps them decide which college is the best fit for them. Outcome measures include post secondary matriculation and student motivation and career planning data.This study is intended to examine the efficacy of the CAP program and has the potential to inform practice, policy and research. It is difficult to study whole school interventions, and this study is testing the methodology to detect an effect of the CAP intervention by assigning students randomly to experimental conditions within the intervention. The potential benefits of the study are alternatives to the gold standard randomized controlled study where the school is the unit of assignment and the unit of analysis. Successful findings support the potential for rigorous studies to be conducted with fewer schools in the sample than traditional power analyses indicate.