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

在改善本科STEM教育的支持下：西班牙裔服务机构（HSI计划），这个轨道1项目旨在通过从低年级到高年级课程的关键过渡来提高生命科学专业的持久性。 该项目是由新墨西哥州高地大学，一个农村西班牙裔服务机构。这所大学注意到，学生在大学早期就大量流失，这反映了全国的趋势。 这些损失可能部分是由于不完全理解影响一年级大学生追求和坚持STEM专业的决定的心理社会因素。 为了帮助填补这一知识空白，项目小组将研究学生的科学身份，归属感和科学自我效能感如何影响他们的教育决策。该项目旨在通过高影响力的研究经验的途径，从夏桥计划开始，并通过上师课程延伸，以提高学生的成功。 研究途径旨在包括所有学生，并反映不同的学生的兴趣。 该项目的一个新的组成部分是本科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经验。 该项目旨在提供一个可测试的模型，用于创建早期的本科生研究，社区和近同行的经验，支持学生的归属感，身份和自我效能感在生命科学课程的发展。该项目将开发一个学生研究途径，在STEM社区内提供早期，综合和文化上知情的研究经验，旨在提高生命科学专业的成功率。在五年内，该项目将衡量基于社区的文化知情的研究经验对生命科学专业的成功的影响。该项目将侧重于研究学生发展的兴趣，理解和欣赏科学在学生的坚持和成功的作用。该项目将使用学生访谈，以确定项目活动，有效地促进和支持学生参与科学。该项目将通过提供一年两次的公平和包容培训讲习班，为新墨西哥州高地大学的STEM教师和社区合作伙伴建立有效教学和指导的能力。研究途径活动将从将基于实习的课堂本科生研究经验（ibCUREs）纳入所有生命科学入门课程开始。 为了开发ibCURE，社区STEM合作伙伴将与教师和正在崛起的大二学生合作，参加暑期科学挑战学院，一个正在崛起的大三暑期实习计划，并开发嵌入学生声音和文化观点的ibCURE。该项目将创建一个文化上知情和基于社区的STEM研究途径模型，该模型可能适用于其他STEM教育项目。一千多名一年级学生将参加ibCURE的生命科学入门课程，从而提高他们的STEM教育质量。 至少有150名大学生和大三学生将参加该项目的其他部分，包括夏季科学挑战学院和实习。该项目将产生关于如何提高本科STEM学生的保留率和持久性的新知识，特别是西班牙裔学生和农村学生，他们在新墨西哥州高地大学的学生人口中占很大比例。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

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.