Developing and Studying a Research Experience Pathway to Improve Undergraduate Life Sciences Education at a Rural Hispanic Serving Institution

在改进的本科生STEM教育：拉美裔服务机构(HSI计划)的支持下，这个Track 1项目旨在通过从低级到高级课程的关键过渡来提高生命科学专业的持久性。该项目由新墨西哥高地大学领导，这是一家农村拉美裔服务机构。反映全国趋势的是，这所大学注意到了学生在大学早期的大量流失。这些失败的部分原因可能是不完全理解的心理社会因素，这些因素影响了一年级大学生继续攻读STEM专业的决定。为了帮助填补这一知识空白，项目团队将调查学生的科学认同感、归属感和科学自我效能感如何影响他们的教育决策。该项目旨在通过一条具有高影响力的研究经验的途径来增加学生的成功，从暑期桥项目开始，一直延伸到高年级课程。研究途径旨在涵盖所有学生，并反映不同的学生兴趣。该项目的一个新组成部分是，本科生实习生有机会与不同的社区组织合作，为生命科学入门课程设计基于课程的本科生研究体验。该项目旨在提供一个可测试的模式，用于创建早期本科研究、社区和近距离同行体验，以支持学生在生命科学项目中发展归属感、认同感和自我效能。该项目将在STEM社区内开发一条具有早期、综合和文化知识的研究经验的学生研究途径，旨在提高生命科学专业的成功。该项目将在五年内衡量基于社区的文化知识研究经验对生命科学专业学生成功的影响。该项目将重点考察学生培养的兴趣、对科学的理解和欣赏在学生的坚持不懈和成功中所起的作用。该项目将使用学生访谈来确定有效促进和支持学生参与科学的项目活动。该项目将通过提供两年一次的公平和包容培训讲习班，为新墨西哥高地大学的STEM教员和社区合作伙伴建设有效教学和指导的能力。研究途径活动将从将基于实习的本科生课堂研究经验(IbCURE)纳入所有生命科学入门课程开始。为了开发ibCURE，社区STEM合作伙伴将在暑期科学挑战学院、Rating初级暑期实习计划以及嵌入学生声音和文化视角的ibCURE的开发中与教师和正在崛起的大二学生合作。该项目将导致创建一种文化知识和社区为基础的STEM研究途径模式，该模式可能适用于其他STEM教育项目。超过一千名一年级学生将参加ibCURE生命科学入门课程，从而提高他们的STEM教育质量。至少150名大二和大三学生将参加该项目的其他部分，包括暑期科学挑战学院和实习。这个项目将产生关于如何提高本科生STEM学生的保留率和持久性的新知识，特别是占新墨西哥高地大学学生总数很大比例的西班牙裔学生和农村学生。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 Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to increase persistence of life sciences majors through the critical transition from lower to upper division coursework. The project is led by New Mexico Highlands University, a rural Hispanic Serving Institution. Reflecting national trends, this university notes significant loss of students early in their college years. These loses may result in part from incompletely understood psychosocial factors that affect first-year college students’ decisions to pursue and persist in STEM majors. To help fill this knowledge gap, the project team will examine how students’ science identity, sense of belonging, and science self-efficacy affects their educational decisions. The project aims to increase student success through a pathway of high impact research experiences starting with a summer bridge program and extending through the upper division curriculum. The research pathway is intended to include all students and to reflect diverse student interests. A novel component of the project is the opportunity for undergraduate interns to partner with different community organizations to design course-based undergraduate research experiences for introductory life science courses. The project aims to provide a testable model for creating early undergraduate research, community, and near-peer experiences that support development of students’ sense of belonging, identity, and self-efficacy within life sciences programs. The project will develop a student research pathway with early, integrated, and culturally informed research experiences within the STEM community designed to increase success for life sciences majors. Over five years, the project will measure the impacts of community-based culturally informed research experiences on the success of life sciences majors. The project will focus on examining the roles of student-developed interests, understanding, and appreciation of science in student persistence and success. The project will use student interviews to identify project activities that effectively promote and support student engagement in science. This project will build capacity in effective teaching and mentorship for STEM faculty at New Mexico Highlands University and community partners by providing biannual equity and inclusion training workshops. Research pathway activities will start with incorporation of internship-based classroom undergraduate research experiences (ibCUREs) into all introductory life sciences courses. To develop ibCUREs, community STEM partners will collaborate with faculty and rising sophomore students in a Summer Science Challenge Academy, a rising junior summer internship program, and the development of ibCUREs that embed student voices and cultural perspectives. This project will result in the creation of a culturally informed and community-based STEM research pathway model that might be applied to other STEM education programs. More than a thousand first year students will participate in the ibCUREs in introductory life science courses, thus enhancing the quality of their STEM education. At least 150 sophomores and juniors will participate in other components of the project, including the Summer Science Challenge Academy and internships. This project will generate new knowledge about how to increase retention and persistence of undergraduate STEM students, particularly Hispanic students and rural students who comprise a large proportion of the student population at New Mexico Highlands University.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.