Freshman Intervention and Retention in STEM Through Scientific Literacy (FIRST SL)

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An Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) implementation and research project will be conducted at Morehouse College with the goal of utilizing a highly innovative utilitarian scientific literacy curriculum to increase retention of freshman STEM majors. Special emphasis will be placed on second semester freshman STEM majors who are at-risk of changing to a non-STEM major. This will be accomplished by: 1) presenting scientific literacy workshop/seminars to all freshman STEM majors at Morehouse College in their Living Learning Center - Orientation and Training program; 2) identifying second semester freshman STEM majors who may be considering changing to a non-STEM major using written assessments and focus groups; 3) enrolling these at-risk second semester freshmen in a cohort and exposing them to advanced scientific literacy best practices that are designed to retain them in the STEM major. The educational research agenda of this project is to determine the efficacy of the programmatic activities in retention of STEM majors as a means of contributing to the knowledge base concerning best practices for freshman intervention and retention in STEM. Increasing student retention in STEM ultimately increases America's scientific workforce and global economic competitiveness.