Building Capacity: Integrated Interventions to Improve Undergraduate Student Success in STEM

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The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge about how to achieve these aims. This project at the University of Houston will advance the aims of the HSI Program by improving retention of students from first-year courses to higher level courses, and through completion of the bachelor's degree. The project will analyze student motivation and desire for obtaining a STEM degree. It will also implement and test the effectiveness of academic interventions, such as a summer bridge program, on student success. As one of two public research institutions in the state of Texas designated as an HSI, and given the demographics of its student enrollment, the University of Houston can contribute to developing a diverse STEM workforce for the state of Texas and the Nation. This project has two components: an intervention component and a research component. The objectives of the intervention component are to implement and test the effectiveness of interventions including: (1) a Summer Bridge Program, (2) a First Year Interest Group, and (3) the Undergraduate Research Guild Experience program. The objective of the research component is to examine the effect of these interventions on motivational and self-regulatory student characteristics and psychosocial contextual factors (e.g., sense of belonging) that are malleable to change through intervention and that are associated with college grades and persistence to graduation. The project will evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of these interventions, which have built-in academic and personal support mechanisms. By measuring the impact of these integrated interventions on student success, the project will extend knowledge about best practices for improving retention and graduation rates. The project has the potential to increase the graduation rate of STEM undergraduates who are prepared to advance into STEM careers and graduate or professional school.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.