Studying and Evaluating Education, Guidance, Advancement, and Learning in Technology and Engineering

国家科学基金会坚定地致力于扩大对STEM的参与。这一承诺包含在其战略计划和投资重点中，涉及“培养一支多元化的、全球参与的科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)劳动力队伍”和“将研究与教育相结合”。为了保持国家在世界各地的竞争优势，国家科学基金会资助了一些项目，这些项目将帮助国家制定有效的战略，吸引、留住和支持工程学专业中代表性不足的学生。该项目将衡量旨在鼓励代表性不足的预科学生从事工程学职业的战略的影响，发展和监测包容性工程学教育的做法，以及鼓励代表性不足的学生坚持工程学的支持制度。该项目与国家科学基金会密切结合，以扩大参与优先事项为基础，以文献为基础，整合预科学生(如高中生)的工程经验，并介绍当前STEM管道不同节点的工程实践和努力，特别是工程学。这很可能有助于招收、保留和毕业代表不足的学生的工程学文献，从而增加他们在教育管道的每一个节点上对工程的参与。使用混合方法研究设计，调查人员概述了一个涉及收集定量和定性数据的项目，该项目涉及如何最好地吸引、留住和支持传统上代表不足的在校和在校工程学学生。该项目将通过双管齐下的方法，应用基于期望值模型和计划行为理论的研究范式。首先，一项吸引计划将集中在高中生和教师/辅导员身上，以评估鼓励学生从事工程职业的策略。这些活动包括针对高需求、不同种族和不同性别学生的工程学科课外活动(每年120名中学生)和专业发展，以教育科学教师/辅导员工程学准备以及工程职业道路的多样性(每年40名教师/辅导员)。其次，保留计划将侧重于女本科生以及教职员工、研究生和博士后助理，目的是开发成功的工程教育实践，鼓励女本科生在该领域坚持下去。这一部分将包括对女学生的学术干预(每年25次)以及对教师的包容性做法培训(每年40次)。总体而言，该项目在教学和咨询专业发展、大学预科项目和大学保留项目方面的研究见解，将通过增加塑造技术进步未来的多元化视角，提升工程专业和国家福利。

The National Science Foundation has a strong commitment to broadening participation in STEM. This commitment is embedded in its Strategic Plan and investment priorities related to "preparing a diverse, globally engaged science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce" and "integrating research with education." To maintain the country's competitive edge across the world, NSF funds projects that will help the nation with pinpointing effective strategies to attract, retain, and support underrepresented students in engineering. This project will measure the impact of strategies designed to encourage underrepresented, pre-collegiate students to pursue engineering careers, practices for developing and monitoring inclusive engineering education, and support systems that encourage underrepresented students to persist in engineering. The project is closely aligned with the NSF broadening participation priorities, and it has great potential to build upon the literature base on integrating engineering experiences for pre-collegiate students (e.g., high school) and informing current engineering practices and efforts at various junctures of the STEM pipeline, especially engineering. It is quite likely that it will contribute to the recruitment, retention, and graduation engineering literature for underrepresented students, thereby increasing their participation in engineering at every juncture of the educational pipeline.Using a mixed-method research design, the investigators outlined a project that involved collecting both quantitative and qualitative data on how to best attract, retain, and support traditionally, underrepresented pre-collegiate and collegiate students in engineering. The project will apply a research paradigm based on an expectancy-value model and the theory of planned behavior through a two-pronged approach. First, an attraction program will concentrate on high school students and teachers/counselors to assess strategies for encouraging students to pursue engineering careers. These include afterschool activities in engineering disciplines for high needs, ethnically and gender diverse students (120 secondary students annually) and professional development to educate science teachers/counselors in engineering preparation, as well as in the diversity of engineering career pathways (40 teachers/counselors annually). Second, a retention program will focus on female undergraduate students and on faculty members, graduate students, and post-doctoral associates, with the aim of developing successful engineering educational practices that encourage women undergraduates to persist in the field. This component will consist of academic interventions for female students (25+ annually) as well as training for instructors (40+ annually) on inclusive practices. Overall, the project's research insights on pedagogical and counseling professional development, pre-college programs, and college retention programs, will elevate the engineering profession and national welfare by adding to the diversity of perspectives that will shape the future of technological advancement.