Creating Retention and Engagement for Academically Talented Engineers

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With funding from the National Science Foundation's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, this project at the University of Nevada, Reno, will support the success of 32 high-achieving students with demonstrated financial need. Throughout its five years, this project will support two cohorts of 16 students who are pursuing baccalaureate degrees in Materials Science and Engineering, as well as Civil, Chemical, Electrical, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering. Cohort-building activities will include an academic boot camp before the students' first college semester, and courses taken by all cohort members. The project will provide a monthly seminar series on topics such as internships, industry mentoring, undergraduate research, and international exchange programs. The project's activities have been positively linked to academic success. This project aims to achieve broader impact by contributing to state and federal strategic workforce diversification goals. Project activities that support these goals include engineering outreach programs and courses on engineering design for K-12 educators. It is expected that the project will generate new knowledge about how engineering education can be improved to better serve the growing number of lower-income, academically talented students entering college. The project will educate graduates who are prepared to directly enter graduate school or work in industry, thus contributing to developing a diverse, flexible, and well-educated STEM workforce. A mixed-methods research design will be used to study the effects of implemented practices on the self-efficacy and engineering identity of the student cohorts. The explicit research objective is to add to existing knowledge about student characteristics and issues that help low-income, academically high-achieving students succeed in engineering and related disciplines. This project will fill gaps in knowledge about the development of self-efficacy and engineering identity in low-income, academically talented students. The project will also identify the most effective combinations of curricular and co-curricular activities that strengthen individual students' self-efficacy and identity, with the goal of developing intervention techniques that retain engineering majors through graduation and placement in industry or graduate school. Quantitative measurable outcomes will include increased student retention, increased cohort self-efficacy and identity statistics, higher-than-average graduation rates for the cohorts using evidence-based programs, and successful placement in industry or graduate school. Qualitative measurable outcomes, determined by participant interviews and surveys, will include attainment of academic and personal goals, increased leadership skills and confidence levels, and established sense of community. These outcomes will be an important contribution to knowledge about recruitment and retention of low-income, academically high-achieving students in the engineering disciplines.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.