Excellence in Research: Evaluating the Use of Virtual Mentoring for HBCU Undergraduates in Computer Science

莫尔豪斯学院和亚拉巴马A M大学提出了一个合作研究项目，以探索使用化身，正式称为体现对话代理，为正在考虑攻读计算研究生学位的本科计算机科学专业的学生提供职业指导。该研究将包括来自十个不同的历史黑人学院和大学（HBCU）的参与学生。拥有计算机科学终端学位的非洲裔美国人很少，但是HBCU在培养非洲裔美国学生方面有着悠久的历史，他们可以继续获得计算机高级学位。这一领域的研究将使计算机科学领域的有效导师能够将他们的最佳实践扩展到HBCU更大比例的本科生。该项目还将资助莫尔豪斯学院与格鲁吉亚理工学院计算机科学在线硕士课程之间的正式合作。这个开创性的项目将允许首席研究员担任格鲁吉亚理工学院硕士生的论文导师，同时他们在莫尔豪斯学院接受研究人员培训。这个项目将调查非洲裔美国学生在决定攻读计算机高级学位时所面临的障碍，以及智能虚拟导师如何影响他们的决定。它将研究什么是一个具体的会话代理与这些特定的学生群体进行交互的最有效的方式。一旦完成，这项研究的结果将用于扩展到其他代表性不足的群体，为各种科学职业提供职业指导。此外，这项研究的结果将有助于建立两个HBCU，莫尔豪斯学院和亚拉巴马A M大学的研究能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Morehouse College and Alabama A&M University proposes a collaborative research project to explore the use of avatars, formally known as embodied conversational agents, to provide career mentoring for undergraduate computer science majors who are considering pursuing a graduate degree in computing. The study will include participating students from ten different Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). African Americans with terminal degrees in computer science are scarce, however HBCUs have a strong history of producing African American students who go on to get advanced degrees in computing. Research in this field will enable effective mentors in computer science to scale their best practices to a larger percentage of undergraduate students at HBCUs. This project will also fund the development of formal collaboration between Morehouse College and the Online Masters in Computer Science Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This groundbreaking program will allow the Principal Investigator to serve as the thesis advisor for Masters students at Georgia Tech while they are trained as researchers at Morehouse College.This project will investigate the barriers faced by African American students when deciding on pursuing advanced degrees in computing as well as how intelligent virtual mentors affect their decision. It will examine what is the most effective way for an embodied conversational agent to interact with these specific group of students. Once completed, the findings from this study will be used to expand to other underrepresented groups to provide career mentoring for an assortment of science careers. Additionally, the findings from this research will help to build the research capacity at two HBCUs, Morehouse College and Alabama A&M University.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.