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

这项研究调查了密歇根州立大学大学雄心计划（CAP）的可持续性，该计划是由美国国家科学基金会（NSF） ITEST资助开发的，并已证明有希望增加参加高等院校或大学的学生人数。CAP是一项全校高中干预，旨在促进一种上大学的文化，在这种文化中，为所有学生提供资源，鼓励他们上大学，特别强调STEM。CAP是一个综合项目，包括辅导和指导、课程咨询和建议、财务援助计划和援助；还有参观大学。可持续性的修改包括将CAP功能从大学的研究生和开发干预的教师转移到高中教师和职前教师。辅导将由同龄人提供，而不是以前学习的本科生。CAP研究性研究是一项研究内实验，使用学生水平对项目效果的估计。在这项研究中，学生将被随机鼓励接受CAP服务，通过使用有针对性的“轻推”。轻推是一种鼓励设计的精神，在这种设计中，由于不遵守规定，治疗意图与实际治疗并不完全一致，但分配机制仍然提供了治疗的变化。轻推实验是在医疗保健研究的可比试验之后建模的。该实验是一种标准的随机分组设计，其中学生被分配到定义为学校的分组中进行治疗。学生们被鼓励使用CAP服务，其中包括一个应用程序，可以帮助他们决定哪所大学最适合他们。结果测量包括高等教育预科和学生的动机和职业规划数据。本研究旨在检验CAP项目的有效性，并有可能为实践、政策和研究提供信息。研究整个学校的干预措施是困难的，本研究是通过将学生随机分配到干预措施中的实验条件来测试检测CAP干预效果的方法。这项研究的潜在好处是替代黄金标准的随机对照研究，在随机对照研究中，学校是任务单位和分析单位。成功的研究结果支持了在样本学校数量少于传统力量分析所显示的情况下进行严谨研究的可能性。

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.