Encouraging Civil Engineering Retention by Increasing Community and Self-Efficacy

在美国国家科学基金会科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金（S-STEM）项目的资助下，“通过提高社区和自我效能来鼓励土木工程留校”项目将支持南卡罗来纳州城堡大学表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生。在五年的时间里，该项目将为攻读土木工程学士学位的学生提供20个奖学金。该项目还将为进入的学者提供新兵训练营津贴，并为继续学习的学者提供夏季津贴和旅行支持。该项目旨在满足增加拥有土木工程学士学位的STEM毕业生人数的需求。多样化的土木工程师队伍对于确保公共安全、人员和货物的有效流动、支持强劲的经济至关重要。该项目旨在通过招收土木工程专业的学生来满足这一需求，特别是那些传统工程人才库之外的学生。该项目有可能增加土木工程人员的多样性，并可能为土木工程过程本身带来新的视角。它也有可能对教学法和课程顺序的变化对学生表现、自我效能感和持久性的影响产生新的见解。这个S-STEM轨道2项目的目标是鼓励不同的、高成就的、低收入的土木工程学生坚持不懈。项目目标包括在土木工程中达到85%的持久性，在两个S-STEM队列中达到75%的持久性。每组10名学生组成一个学生学术实践社区。同组成员将被安排上相同的课程，分配到共同的宿舍，并一起参加课外研讨会。在第一年和第二年之前，学生将住在校园里，完成微积分I和微积分II的部分，这些部分仅限于S-STEM学生。在第二年的学习中，学生将在小的、积极的学习部分完成化学I和II。提供专业的指导、研究和实习机会，提高学生的自我效能感。该项目旨在研究干预措施对学生自我效能感、保留和表现的影响，采用有效的工具和后续焦点小组和访谈。该项目有可能发展出理论基础和经验验证的最佳实践，以留住低收入、表现优异的工程专业学生。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With funding from the NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, the "Encouraging Civil Engineering Retention by Increasing Community and Self-Efficacy" project will support high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at The Citadel in South Carolina. Throughout its five years, this project will fund twenty scholarships for students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in Civil Engineering. The project will also provide boot camp stipends for entering scholars, as well as summer stipends and travel support for continuing scholars. The project will seek to address the need to increase the number of STEM graduates with bachelor degrees in civil engineering. A diverse pool of civil engineers is significant for ensuring public safety and the efficient movement of people and goods, to support a robust economy. This project aims to meet this need by recruiting students to civil engineering, particularly students who are outside of the traditional pools of engineering talent. The project has the potential to increase the diversity of the civil engineering workforce and may bring new perspectives to the civil engineering process itself. It also has the potential to produce new insights into the impacts that changes to pedagogy and course sequencing have on student performance, self-efficacy, and persistence.The goal of this S-STEM Track 2 project is to encourage persistence of diverse, high-achieving, low-income students in civil engineering. Project objectives include attaining 85% persistence in civil engineering and 75% persistence within the two S-STEM cohorts. Each cohort of ten students will form a student academic community of practice. Cohort members will be scheduled in the same courses, assigned to common dormitories, and participate together in co-curricular seminars. Prior to their first and second years, students will live on campus and complete Calculus I and Calculus II in sections restricted to S-STEM students. During their second year of study, students will complete Chemistry I and II in small, active-learning sections. Professional mentorship, research, and internship opportunities will be provided to enhance students' self-efficacy. The project aims to study the impacts of the interventions on student self-efficacy, retention, and performance using validated instruments and follow-up focus groups and interviews. The project has the potential to develop theoretically grounded and empirically verified best practices for retention of low-income, high-performing engineering students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.