Broadening Participation Research Project: Understanding the role of culture in an intervention to increase the persistence of African American STEM students

该项目将考察背景因素、职业规划技能、职业决策信心、心态、社会阶层和社会资本对STEM学生职业发展的影响。研究人员将调查这些因素对非裔美国STEM学生坚持不懈的作用。作为一项转化研究，该项目将理论与实践相结合，并展示了使用修订后的干预措施的影响，该干预措施侧重于培养非裔美国STEM本科学生的职业管理技能。研究人员将提供证据，证明一种有效的方法可以提高少数族裔STEM学生的保留率。本项目以社会认知职业理论（SCCT）为基础，采用混合方法设计，回答三个研究问题：(1)SCCT定义的社会资本和社会阶层等情境因素如何影响参与者职业规划能力的变化和获得STEM研究生学位的意向？(2)为支持STEM专业而增加的机构资源如何影响干预的效果？(3)干预对参与先前职业管理干预的STEM学生的长期影响是什么？研究人员将获得与少数民族学生职业发展相关的干预和支持模式建立的定量和定性信息。该项目有望填补职业心理学和STEM坚持文献的空白，即将与代表性不足的少数民族职业发展相关的理论与非洲裔美国STEM学生有效的职业干预、成长心态和学术坚持研究相结合。该项目由历史上的黑人学院和大学本科项目资助，扩大了STEM教育研究的参与范围。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The proposed project will examine the impact of contextual factors, career planning skills, confidence in career decision, mindset, social class, and social capital on career development of STEM students. Researchers will investigate the tole of these factors on African American STEM student persistence. As a translational research study, the project grounds theory in practice and demonstrates the impact of using a revised intervention focused on developing the career management skills of African American undergraduate STEM students. The researchers will produce evidence of an effective method for increasing the retention of minority STEM students. Grounded in Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), the project follows a mixed methods design to answer three research questions: (1) How do SCCT-defined contextual factors such as social capital and social class affect the change in participants’ career planning abilities and intentions to obtain a graduate degree in STEM? (2) How does an increase in institutional resources designed to support STEM majors impact the efficacy of the intervention? and (3) What is the long-term impact of the intervention on STEM students who participated in the prior career management interventions? Researchers will obtain quantitative and qualitative information on the impact of the intervention and support model building related to career development of minority students. The project is expected to fill a gap in the vocational psychology and STEM persistence literature, i.e., the integration of theory related to career development with underrepresented minorities with research on effective career intervention, growth mindset, and academic persistence for African American STEM students. This project is funded by the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program, broadening participation in STEM education research track.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.