Advancing Scholars in Successful Undergraduate Research Experiences (ASSURE)

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This project aims to serve the national interest by investigating the relationships between community college students' participation in scientific research and their academic success and degree completion. Specifically, the project will evaluate the impacts of new research-oriented curricula, together with hands-on research experiences for community college students in the chemical sciences. These changes are expected to increase student engagement, retention, degree completion, and rate of transfer from community college. Specific aims are to (1) increase successful completion rates in General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, (2) increase the representation of Latinx STEM students transferring to four-year universities, and (3) facilitate post-transfer success of students through supports including authentic research experiences, transfer workshops, and e-mentoring. The project will focus on students from underrepresented groups or socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. The project will test a scalable model of research practice at the community college that has the potential to improve undergraduate STEM education and promote the development of a diverse STEM workforce.Los Angeles City College (LACC) and the University of Southern California (USC) will investigate how exposure to authentic research experiences, characterized by the application of the process of science and the scientific method, correlates with increased academic success and degree completion for community college STEM students. To that end, the project will test two related assumptions: (1) the integration of authentic research experiences into community college classroom and laboratory coursework will correlate with improved academic performance, persistence, and degree completion; and (2) participation in authentic research experiences at the community college level will correlate with improved academic performance, persistence, degree completion, and transfer to four-year universities. Project activities include redesign of laboratory curricula in General Chemistry II and Organic Chemistry I and II courses, providing research experiences for students who have completed an organic chemistry course; and assessing LACC’s institutional and departmental capacity with regard to STEM education. USC will provide 10-week summer research experiences for LACC students at USC and measure the impact of the project’s pedagogical changes and research exposure on student success and degree completion to evaluate the validity of the project’s theory of change. This project is supported by the NSF IUSE: EHR Program, which supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools to understand how institutions change to better support student learning.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.