NSF INCLUDES DDLP Statewide Consortium: Supporting Underrepresented Populations in Precalculus by Organizational Redesign toward Engineering Diversity

提高中学后工程学位课程的保留率是解决全国熟练工程师短缺问题的最有效方法。即使在控制了人口统计特征之后，数学课程的安排和表现都是工程专业毕业的强有力的预测因素。代表性不足的学生（例如，农村学生、低收入家庭学生、第一代学生和有色人种学生）在进入尚未准备好微积分的工程专业的群体中所占比例不成比例。通常，获得工程学位的时间和成本增加，获得学位的可能性也降低。对于就读于南卡罗来纳州精选高中的非裔美国学生来说，这一教育问题尤为严重，贫困率极高。因此，研究人员提出了一个NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot项目，在南卡罗来纳州建立一个全州范围的联盟-包括所有拥有ABET批准的工程学位课程的公立四年制机构，所有技术学院和118所贫困率为70%或更高的高中，以查明和解决阻止这些学生在工程学中准备微积分的障碍。这个NSF INCLUDES启动试点项目将通过收集强大的横截面数据来确定和理解关键决策之间和背后的复杂联系，从而绘制学生的完成/流失路径。这种数据还没有达到这种程度，特别是集中在不同的人口。此外，通过开发结构方程模型（SEM），研究人员将能够建立在现有的研究基础上，直接有助于了解一系列潜在变量对工程身份发展的相对影响，特别是在非洲裔美国人，农村，低收入和第一代工程专业学生中。试点干预措施的结果可能有助于经验和理论文献，重点工程持久性代表性不足的人群。项目计划还包括开发一个与工程纵向发展调查多机构数据库（中场）项目兼容的集中式数据库，与K-12和中学后管理人员，工程教育工作者和教育研究人员共享机构数据。

Improving retention rates in postsecondary engineering degree programs is the single most effective approach for addressing the national shortage of skilled engineers. Both mathematics course placement and performance are strong graduation predictors in engineering, even after controlling for demographic characteristics. Underrepresented students (e.g., rural students, low-income students, first-generation students, and students of color) are disproportionately represented in cohorts that enter engineering programs not yet calculus-ready. Frequently, the time and cost of obtaining an engineering degree is increased, and the likelihood of obtaining the degree is also reduced. This educational problem is particularly acute for African American students who attended select high schools in South Carolina, with extremely high-poverty rates. As a result, the investigators proposed an NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project to develop a statewide consortium in South Carolina - comprising all of the public four-year institutions with ABET-approved engineering degree programs, all of the technical colleges, and 118 high schools with 70% or higher poverty rates, to pinpoint and address the barriers that prevent these students from being calculus ready in engineering. This NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project will map completion/attrition pathways of students by collecting robust cross-sectional data to identify and understand the complex linkages between and behind critical decisions. Such data have not been available to this extent, especially focused on diverse populations. Further, by developing structural equation models (SEMs), the investigators will be able to build on extant research, contributing directly to understanding the relative impact of a range of latent variables on the development of engineering identity, particularly among African American, rural, low-income, and first-generation engineering students. Results of the pilot interventions are likely to contribute to the empirical and theoretical literature that focus on engineering persistence among underrepresented populations. Project plans also include developing a centralized database compatible to the Multiple Institution Database for Investigation of Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) project to share institutional data with K-12 and postsecondary administrators, engineering educators, and education researchers with NSF INCLUDES projects and beyond.