IGE: Increasing Academic Success for Underrepresented Minority PhD Graduate STEM Students Through Self-Advocacy Education

这项授予伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校(UIC)的国家科学基金会研究生教育创新(IGE)奖将创建一个新的自我倡导教育计划，以帮助来自代表不足的少数族裔(URM)群体的学生提高在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域的博士课程完成率。URM学生在STEM注册和完成博士学位的比率比大多数群体低得多；他们还经常面临教育研究人员所说的高等教育和STEM中的“恐吓气氛”。该项目的目标是支持学生的赋权、代理和真实性，以获得学业成功和融入STEM。这将通过一个培训计划来实现，该培训计划将学习障碍社区的循证调查结果转化为促进自我倡导，并对URM博士生的留校和学业成功产生积极影响。这个IGE将讨论教学自我倡导是否会增加URM博士生的学术成就、社会融合和总体幸福感，从而提高博士学位的获得。对学习障碍社区内教授自我辩护的循证实践进行的全面审查发现，有三个关键因素结合在一起，可以导致更高的学业成功：赋权、自我意识和社会正义。自我宣传已被证明可以提高学生在向高等教育的关键过渡期间的留存率，或增加对学习STEM学科的参与，同时也提高了学术成就。因此，研究假设是，教授自我倡导将有助于提高UIC的URM STEM研究生的学业成就、改善社会融合，并改善他们的健康和福祉，他们中的许多人是第一代人或低收入者。这笔赠款的社会影响将是一个成功的研究生教育计划，它包括URM学生，并将在更广泛的范围内告知如何增加URM研究生在STEM学科的参与度。预计来自学习障碍社区的循证教育做法的翻译将作为向URM STEM研究生教授自我倡导的基础，并进一步将这些做法翻译给UIC和其他高等教育机构希望提高其URM研究生学术成就的其他学生群体和领域。这项工作还将增加所需的奖学金，研究影响URM STEM博士研究生弹性的因素，以及自我倡导如何影响他们的学术成功和健康/福祉。研究生教育创新(IGE)计划专注于研究生教育方面的研究。IGE的目标是试验、测试和验证研究生教育的创新方法，并产生将这些方法推广到更广泛社区所需的知识。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 National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) award to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) will create a new educational program of self-advocacy to help students from underrepresented minority (URM) groups increase doctoral program completion in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. URM students enroll in and complete PhD degrees in STEM at a much lower rate than majority groups; they also often face what educational researchers refer to as “climates of intimidation” within higher education and STEM. This project’s goals are to support students’ empowerment, agency and authenticity for academic success and social integration into STEM. This will be accomplished with a training program that translates the evidence-based findings of the learning disabilities communities to promote self-advocacy and positively impact the retention and academic success of URM PhD students. This IGE will address whether teaching self-advocacy increases the academic success, social integration and general well-being of URM PhD STEM students, and thereby lead to improvements in doctoral degree attainment. A comprehensive review of evidence-based practices for teaching self-advocacy within the learning disability communities found that there are three critical factors that, when combined, result in increased academic success: empowerment, self-awareness, and social justice. Self-advocacy has been shown to increase students’ retention during critical transitions to post-secondary education or increase participation in learning STEM disciplines, while also increasing academic success. Thus, the research hypothesis is that teaching self-advocacy will result in improved academic success, improved social integration, and improved health and well-being for URM STEM graduate students at UIC, many of whom are first generation or low-income. The societal impact of this grant will be a successful graduate education program that is inclusive of URM students and that will inform on a broader scale how to increase participation of URM graduate students in STEM disciplines. It is anticipated that the translation of evidence-based educational practices from the learning disabilities communities will serve as a foundation for teaching self-advocacy to URM STEM graduate students, and further the translation of these practices to other student populations and fields at UIC and other institutions of higher learning that want to increase the academic success of their URM graduate students. This work will also add to the needed scholarship on the factors that impact resilience of URM STEM PhD graduate students and how self-advocacy affects their academic success and health/well-being.The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.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.