Supporting the Academic Success of Undergraduate STEM Students through Scholarships and STEM Identity Development

通过奖学金和 STEM 身份发展支持本科 STEM 学生的学业成功

• 批准号: 1930037
• 负责人: Gisela Spieler-Persad
• 金额: $ 99.67万
• 依托单位: Rio Hondo College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-11-15 至 2024-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1930037&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Supporting; Academic; Success; Undergraduate; STEM

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need at Rio Hondo College. Located in Southern California, Rio Hondo College is a public, two-year, Hispanic-serving institution. More than 55% of its students are classified as low-income, first-generation college students. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund two-year scholarships to 45 students who are pursuing associate degrees for transfer in Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by providing financial support, combined with efforts to analyze and support the success of low-income STEM students. The project will include a "Thrive as a Scientist" course, along with support activities such as mentoring/tutoring, undergraduate research experiences, and curricular improvements. This multi-faceted approach is expected to help Scholars acquire a STEM identity that can carry them throughout their college and professional careers. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Current theory about the development of science identity offers a framework to investigate how science identity and cultural identity affect student agency, and what college structures support this development. Unfortunately, most measurement tools related to development of STEM identity were created by four-year institutions for students enrolled in four-year degree programs. Considering the increasing number of underrepresented minority students who begin their post-secondary education at a community college, a pressing need exists to better understand STEM identity development at two-year institutions. This project will help to address this need by using a culturally-sensitive STEM identity instrument to measure and address the barriers and opportunities facing STEM students at two-year colleges. The results will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and to advance understanding of the effects of cultural and STEM identity as students complete their courses of study at two-year institutions, and graduate and/or transfer to four-year institutions in STEM fields. With an emphasis on the two-year college setting, the results of this project will add to the discourse in STEM education with a renewed focus on not just changing student behaviors but also chancing the culture of institutions in which they are enrolled. The project will evaluate the effectiveness of each of the project's components and will publish results of the knowledge generated in education and social science journals, and disseminate findings at regional and national meetings to broaden the impact of the project. 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 talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, 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.

该项目将通过支持留住有经济需求的高成就、低收入本科生并在里约本多学院毕业，来促进国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。里约本多学院位于南加州，是一所为拉美裔服务的两年制公立学校。超过55%的学生被归类为低收入的第一代大学生。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为45名正在攻读生物、化学、环境科学、工程、数学和物理副学士学位的学生提供为期两年的奖学金。该项目旨在通过提供财政支持，结合分析和支持低收入STEM学生取得成功的努力，提高学生在STEM领域的坚持性。该项目将包括一门“作为科学家茁壮成长”的课程，以及辅导/辅导、本科生研究体验和课程改进等支持活动。这种多方面的方法有望帮助学者们获得STEM身份，使他们能够贯穿整个大学和职业生涯。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位毕业率。当前关于科学认同发展的理论为研究科学认同和文化认同如何影响学生中介，以及什么大学结构支持这种发展提供了一个框架。不幸的是，大多数与STEM认同感发展相关的测量工具都是由四年制院校为注册四年制学位课程的学生创建的。考虑到在社区大学开始接受高等教育的少数民族学生人数越来越少，迫切需要更好地了解两年制院校的STEM身份发展。该项目将通过使用对文化敏感的STEM身份识别工具来衡量和解决STEM学生在两年制大学面临的障碍和机会，从而帮助满足这一需求。结果将用于评估干预措施的有效性，并在学生完成两年制院校的学习课程并毕业和/或转到四年制STEM领域的机构时，促进对文化和STEM特性的影响的了解。随着对两年制大学设置的重视，该项目的结果将增加STEM教育的话语，重新关注不仅是改变学生的行为，还包括改变他们所在机构的文化。该项目将评估该项目每个组成部分的有效性，并将在教育和社会科学期刊上发表知识成果，并在区域和国家会议上传播成果，以扩大该项目的影响。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学业成功、留住、转移、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。