Testing the Impact of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Streamline Transfer Support on STEM Success for Underrepresented Students

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TITLE: Testing the Impact of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Streamline Transfer Support on STEM Success for Underrepresented StudentsWith the support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2 project will examine whether the combined impact of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) in STEM, coupled with the removal of structural barriers for transfer, will result in the repair of the STEM pipeline for underrepresented talent. Our nation must discover innovative answers for numerous crises of well-being: food, water, energy, and health, to name a few. These solutions will require future-focused, creative thinking, achievable only if we are educating a diverse STEM workforce. The percentage of high school graduates who plan to major in STEM at a 2-year institution is rising, demonstrating growth for the high school-to-community college pipeline. Yet, even as community college STEM enrollment is increasing, degree completion remains persistently low for underrepresented students. This project posits that CRP, alongside strategic transfer supports, is the answer. The project will build on emerging literature, which argues that CRP is critical at the K-12 level to engage underserved students in STEM academic experiences. The project will also build upon recent studies which indicate that diversity in the STEM pipeline cannot be achieved without repairing the “leak” between 2-year and 4-year colleges. This project will jointly leverage these evidence-based insights to explore whether CRP’s advantages can be scaffolded across from K-12 to repair the STEM pipeline’s most critical transition, from 2- to 4-year schools. The research intervention for this project will fill a critical gap in our national understanding of community college-to-baccalaureate STEM persistence by testing the combined impact of CRP and streamlined transfer support structures for underserved students. This research will generate a new evidence basis for strategies to drastically improve STEM education for underrepresented students. Furthermore, the project will test and implement an inclusive, equity-driven model of community college STEM success to serve as an exemplar in higher education. Lessons will be disseminated nationwide through conference presentations and publication in peer-reviewed journals, with a promise to inform effective tactics and practices that will lead to increased success for underrepresented students while meeting the urgent national challenge of STEM workforce inclusivity. Recognizing that underrepresented, low-income, and first-generation college students will be the leaders and innovators of the next-generation STEM workforce, this project is designed to generate the groundbreaking knowledge that enables both their future and the nation’s long-term prosperity. This 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.