HSI-SMART: STEM Model for Research and Teaching Undergraduate-intervention Program

在改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构（HSI计划）的支持下，该项目旨在提高所有科学、数学和工程专业的毕业率，缩短完成学位的时间，并缩小拉丁裔和非拉丁裔白人学生之间以及男女学生之间存在的成绩差距。HSI-STEM推进研究与教学模型（HSI-SMART）项目将把四种干预措施整合成一个整体，涵盖学生的整个本科生涯。该项目将：促进夏季咨询研讨会，在学生的第一学期之前建立学生与教师的关系，将适当的学生安排在关键的第一年入门课程中作为带薪学习助理，将学生安排在带薪研究助理中，并让学生参与课堂活动以减少焦虑和增加归属感。与教授和同学的直接联系将有助于留住新生，课堂学习助理将在最关键的阶段支持学生的参与，学习和研究助理将使学生与校园社区保持联系，并专注于他们的学科。该项目将创建一个自我传播的学生社区，拉美裔和女性学生将通过咨询研讨会和入门课程，并在毕业前回到学习和研究助理项目中。该项目将汇集所有STEM学科，通过将一系列干预措施纳入连贯的培训和社区建设模式，提高拉丁裔和女性的参与度、留任率和成功率。干预措施的有效性虽然在其他方面已经得到证实，但对于拉丁裔和女性学生坚持攻读STEM学位，特别是在hsi，并没有充分的证据。该项目将通过具体解决有关拉丁裔和女性学生的问题来解决现有知识的这一差距：以stem为目标的夏季辅导课程是否会影响保留率；解决学生焦虑和归属感的心理干预是否影响入门课程成绩和学位坚持；将与自己相近的学生安排在门户教室是否会影响学生和学习助手的表现；以及作为本科生从事研究是否同样有助于从新手到研究生的成功过渡。由于它将从拉丁裔和女性学生群体中招募参与者，该项目假设所有这些干预措施都将有利于目标人群的归属感、学习成绩和毕业率。该项目将在普遍干预与定量、受控研究方法之间取得平衡，以衡量综合干预和孤立干预对拉丁裔和女性学生成功的重要性。这种可扩展、可评估和集成的STEM归属和成就模型将为STEM教育文献和实践增添至关重要的相关元素。更广泛地说，该项目将从根本上改变STEM学生体验的社会维度，从学生步入校园到毕业，通过创建和支持社区和包容性，并将成为其他hsi学生成功和包容性社区建设的典范。HSI计划旨在加强HSI的本科STEM教育和能力建设。HSI计划支持的项目也将产生关于如何实现这些目标的新知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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 Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to increase graduation rates and reduce the time to degree completion for all science, mathematics, and engineering majors and to reduce the performance gap existing between Latinx and non-Latinx White students as well as between female and male students. The HSI-STEM Model for Advancing Research and Teaching (HSI-SMART) project will combine a set of four interventions into an integrated whole that spans students' entire undergraduate careers. This project will: facilitate summer advising workshops to create student-faculty relationships before the students' first semester, place appropriate students in key first year gateway classes as paid learning assistants, place students in paid research assistantships, and engage students in classroom activities to reduce anxiety and increase sense of belonging. Direct connection to professors and peers will support the retention of new students, classroom learning assistants will support student participation at its most crucial stage, and both learning- and research-assistantships will keep students engaged with the campus community and focused on their discipline. This program will create a self-propagating student community as Latinx and female students move through the advising workshops and introductory courses and are looped back into the learning and research assistantship programs as they proceed toward graduation. This project will bring together all STEM disciplines to increase Latinx and female participation, retention, and success by integrating a set of interventions into a coherent training and community-building model. The efficacy of interventions, while otherwise well-established, is not well-documented for Latinx and female student persistence in STEM degrees, particularly at HSIs. The project will address this gap in existing knowledge by addressing questions specifically about Latinx and female students: whether STEM-targeted summer advising sessions affect retention; whether psychological interventions addressing student anxiety and sense of belonging influence introductory course achievement and degree persistence; whether placing near-peers in gateway classrooms affects performance of both students and learning assistant; and whether engaging in research as undergraduates likewise supports a successful transition from novice to graduate. As it will recruit participants from Latinx and female student populations, the project hypothesizes that all these interventions will benefit that target populations' sense of belonging, academic performance, and graduation rates. The project will balance universal interventions with quantitative, controlled-study approaches to measure the importance of the aggregate and isolated interventions in success of Latinx and female students. This scalable, assessable, and integrated model of STEM belonging and achievement will add a critically relevant element to STEM educational literature and practice. More broadly, the project will fundamentally change the social dimension of the STEM student experience by creating and supporting community and inclusion from the moment students walk onto campus until their graduation, and will serve as model for student success and inclusive community building at other HSIs. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.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.