FIRSTS (Foundation for Increasing and Retaining STEM Students) Program: A bridge program to study the sociological development of science identities

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

FIRSTS (Foundation for Increasing and Retaining STEM Students) is an extended summer bridge program for incoming students that continues through their first semester at college. The overall goals of this program are to help students from underserved populations transition to the rigors of the STEM curriculum and gather both qualitative and quantitative data on the reasons financially needy students elect to leave STEM disciplines. Rather than simply filling content gaps, FIRSTS will use the remediation of study skills in a interdisciplinary summer course, extensive mentoring, and the development of a science identity to improve success in STEM disciplines. In addition to student-focused strategies, the program also will incorporate faculty development in the improvement of teaching methods and mentoring through participation, training, interdisciplinary interactions, and discussions. FIRSTS will leverage the existing college-funded programming that is focused on predominantly underrepresented minority students from regions of historic poverty and will carefully pilot an expansion to include School of Science students with similar profiles. This program will deploy best practices for at-risk students, while focusing the research on understudied questions related to the impact of socioeconomic status, intersecting science and other identities. As such, FIRSTS will represent the unique data-driven collaboration between the School of Science and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences on pedagogy and research. If successful, the data from this project will allow other departments, colleges, and universities to incorporate a developmental philosophy in their existing STEM retention strategies.