STEM Scholarship Excellence Project: Exploring the Effects of Psychosocial Factors on STEM Persistence at an Historically Black College

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This five-year project will support the success of twenty-eight low-income, high-achieving STEM undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need at Lane College, an Historically Black College. Achieving this goal will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. The project will provide scholarships to students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, and/or Physics. First-year students will receive four-year scholarships and transfer students will receive two-year scholarships. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by linking scholarships with effective supporting activities. Planned activities include mentoring, undergraduate research experiences, service learning, outreach projects, graduate school preparation, and participation in discipline-specific conferences. With the help of mentors, the Scholars will create Individual Development Plans that define their career goals and steps toward achieving those goals. The project will also support curriculum improvements aimed at increasing first-year student retention in STEM. Because Lane College has a high population of underrepresented students, this project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM fields.The overall goal of the project is to increase degree completion of low-income, academically high-achieving undergraduates in STEM fields. Non-cognitive, psychosocial factors, such as fixed and growth mindset, grit, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward science, have been demonstrated to affect student persistence in STEM. This project will investigate the effects of psychosocial factors on STEM students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, many of whom face challenges related to college readiness, academic engagement, and scientific identity. This project will examine the possibility that the Scholar selection process is biased toward students who are predisposed to success because of psychosocial factors, such as growth mindset. It will also investigate the alternative possibility that the Scholars develop certain psychosocial factors associated with academic success as a result of participating in project activities. This project has the potential to advance understanding of how psychosocial factors affect student success in STEM fields, including the success of students from underrepresented groups. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income, academically high-achieving students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future scientists, engineers, and technicians, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income 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.