Evaluating the Potential of Community College Guided Pathways Reforms to Increase Undergraduate STEM Student Success

在NSF改善本科生STEM教育计划：教育和人力资源(IUSE：EHR)的支持下，该项目旨在服务于维护受过良好教育的多样化STEM劳动力的国家利益。为此，它侧重于了解如何提高社区学院的能力，以扩大本科生STEM项目的参与和成功。每年有近200万第一次上大学的学生进入社区大学。不幸的是，这些学生中很少有人成功完成STEM的大专或学士学位。大多数社区学院的结构组织并没有提供能够提高STEM成功的关键支持。例如，它们通常缺乏帮助学生考虑STEM职业或使学生的课程和学习经历与STEM职业需求保持一致所需的结构性组织。因此，改善社区大学生入学机会和STEM成功的努力必须解决这些结构性障碍。然而，数百所社区大学正在从根本上重新设计课程、政策和实践，以更好地帮助学生选择和完成适合他们兴趣和才能的STEM课程。他们通过以下方式做到这一点：(1)创建在科学、工程和计算机科学等领域的完成、转学和职业生涯的清晰“计划地图”；(2)帮助新生探索职业和大学选择，并制定完整的计划；(3)监控学生的进度，帮助他们保持在计划中；以及(4)确保学生在各个项目中培养基本的技能和知识。该项目旨在评估这些全校的“指导路径”改革如何改变STEM项目的实践。该项目团队将与三个州的高等教育机构合作，这三个州是全州社区大学指导路径改革的领先者：俄亥俄州、田纳西州和华盛顿州。该项目的目标是评估这些指导路径改革如何改变STEM计划、建议和其他支持的做法；大学和STEM计划领导人在实施这些改革时面临哪些障碍和促进者；大学应该使用什么指标来形式化地评估这些改革对STEM计划有效性的影响；以及指导路径改革与社区大学学生、特别是代表性不足的学生在本科STEM计划中的招生、早期进展和坚持性之间存在什么关系。研究设计以混合方法为基础，将包括实地研究，以评估指导路径改革的实施规模，对学生单位记录进行统计分析，以及对访谈和焦点小组数据进行定性分析。由此产生的分析将成为以从业者为重点的报告和简报以及同行评议的期刊文章的基础。这项研究旨在通过确定和验证指标，为大学实践和公共政策提供信息。项目团队将编制一份从业人员指南，其中包括用于形成性使用的指标，以评估指导路径改革对STEM成果的影响。该团队还将就社区大学如何利用正在进行的社区大学指导路径改革来改善本科STEM课程的获取和完成情况编写一份从业人员指南。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区转变和改进STEM教育的努力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest in maintaining a well-educated, diverse STEM workforce. To do so, it focuses on understanding how to increase the capacity of community colleges to broaden participation and success in undergraduate STEM programs. Almost two million first-time college students enroll in community colleges each year. Unfortunately, few of these students successfully complete an associate or bachelor's degree in STEM. The structural organization of most community colleges does not provide critical supports that could improve STEM success. For example, they generally lack the structural organization needed to help students consider STEM careers or to align students' coursework and learning experiences with STEM career demands. Consequently, efforts to improve community college student access and success in STEM must address these structural barriers. However, hundreds of community colleges are fundamentally redesigning programs, policies, and practices at scale to better help students choose and complete STEM programs suited to their interests and talents. They are doing this by: (1) creating clear "program maps" to completion, transfer, and careers in fields such as sciences, engineering, and computer science; (2) helping new students explore career and college options and develop a full-program academic plan; (3) monitoring students' progress to help them stay on their plan; and (4) ensuring that students are building essential skills and knowledge across programs. This project, is designed to evaluate how these whole-college "guided pathways" reforms are changing practices in STEM programs. The project team will partner with higher education agencies in three states that are leading statewide community college Guided Pathways reforms: Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington. The goals of the project are to evaluate how these Guided Pathways reforms are changing practices in STEM programs, advising, and other supports; what barriers and facilitators college and STEM program leaders face in implementing these reforms; what metrics colleges should use to formatively evaluate the effects of these reforms on STEM program effectiveness; and what relationship exists between Guided Pathways reforms and enrollment, early progress, and persistence in undergraduate STEM programs by community college students generally and by underrepresented students in particular. The research design is based on a mixed methods approach that will include field research to assess the scale of implementation of Guided Pathways reforms, statistical analysis of student unit records, and qualitative analysis of interview and focus group data. Resulting analyses will be the basis of practitioner-focused reports and briefs and peer-reviewed journal articles. The study is designed to inform college practices and public policy through the identification and validation of metrics. The project team will produce a practitioner guide that includes metrics that for formative use to evaluate the effects of Guided Pathways reforms on STEM outcomes. The team will also produce a practitioner guide on how community colleges can leverage ongoing community college Guided Pathways reforms to improve access to and completion of undergraduate STEM programs. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.