Community-building, Mentoring, and Research Experiences to Develop Undergraduate STEM Majors' Scientific Identities and Preparation for STEM Careers

该项目将通过支持圣诺伯特学院有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生的留校和毕业，为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做出贡献。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为18名攻读生物、化学、计算机科学、环境科学、地质学、数学或物理学士学位的学生提供四年奖学金。该项目建立在学院现有的学生成功倡议的基础上，目的是为学者们提供一条通往学术和职业成功的指导途径。奖学金获得者将通过提前入学计划开始他们的本科生涯，与其他奖学金获得者一起生活在一个学习社区，参加既定的学术同行指导计划，并参与教师指导的多年研究和/或与当地行业合作伙伴的实习。职业和教育发展将通过包括简历开发、系列研讨会、职业发展日、外展活动和研究生考试准备等活动加以补充。该项目旨在提高面临经济和财务障碍的学业优秀学生的招生、留住、毕业和成功程度。作为这一项目的一部分开发的方案可供其他学生使用，从而扩大了该奖项的影响。此外，该项目还包括一项研究，以考察学生何时以及如何发展他们的科学认同，并确定项目活动如何影响这一过程。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。学者将参加一系列活动和支持，这些活动和支持是为提高STEM学生的成功率而设立的。该项目将研究活动和支持相结合对学者科学认同发展的影响。STEM学生将自己定位为未来职业科学家的程度往往会影响他们是否完成STEM学位。该项目将探索学生的科学身份和对科学的态度如何随着他们在项目活动和支持中的进步而改变。本研究将探讨三个研究问题：科学认同和自我效能形成对STEM成功的影响是什么？积极的科学社会化对STEM的成功和留存有多大的效果？对于社会经济背景较低的学生，参加项目活动和支持是否会增加STEM的成功？使用认识论信念评估和劳森科学推理课堂测试，该项目将评估学者与社会人口统计学上匹配的非学者在本科经历之前、期间和之后的学业准备情况、科学身份和科学自我效能形成、积极社会化和STEM成功。通过跟踪队列之间随时间的变化，研究将确定科学认同、自我效能形成和积极社会化是否、如何以及何时影响STEM成功。评估和评估小组还将每年对理科专业的学生和学者队列进行重点小组，以收集有关该项目影响的定性信息。评估和评价工作得出的结论打算在地方、区域和国家会议上传播。该项目由国家科学、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、有经济需要的学生的数量。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。

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 students with demonstrated financial need at St. Norbert College. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund four-year scholarships to 18 students who are pursuing Bachelor of Science degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Environmental Science, Geology, Mathematics, or Physics. The project builds upon existing student success initiatives at the College, with the goal of providing Scholars with a mentored pathway to academic and career success. The Scholars will begin their undergraduate career with an early arrival program, reside in a living learning community with other Scholars, participate in an established academic peer mentoring program, and engage in multi-year faculty-mentored research and/or internships with local industrial partners. Career and educational development will be supplemented via activities that include resume development, a seminar series, a career day, outreach activities, and graduate examination preparation. The project aims to increase the recruitment, retention, graduation, and success of academically-talented students who face economic and financial barriers. The programming developed as part of this project be available to other students, thus broadening the impact of the award. In addition, the project includes a research study to examine when and how students develop their scientific identity, and to determine how project activities affect that process.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Scholars will participate in a combination of activities and supports that are well-established for improving success rates among STEM students. The project will study the effect of the combination of activities and supports on development of Scholars' scientific identify. The point at which STEM students identify themselves as future career scientists often affects whether they complete STEM degrees. The project will explore how students' scientific identities and attitudes toward science change as they progress through the project activities and supports. The research study will investigate three research questions: What is the impact of scientific identity and self-efficacy formation on STEM success? How effective is positive scientific socialization on STEM success and retention? Does participation in the project activities and supports increase STEM success for students with low socioeconomic backgrounds? Using the Epistemological Beliefs Assessment and the Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning, the project will evaluate academic readiness, scientific identity and scientific self-efficacy formation, positive socialization, and STEM success of Scholars versus sociodemographically-matched non-Scholars before, during, and after the undergraduate experience. By tracking changes between the cohorts over time, the research will identify if, how, and when scientific identity, self-efficacy formation, and positive socialization impact STEM success. The assessment and evaluation team will also conduct annual focus groups of science majors and the Scholar cohort to gather qualitative information on the project's impact. The findings derived from the assessment and evaluation efforts are intended to be disseminated at local, regional, and national conferences. This project is funded by NSFs 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.