RAPID: Social Network Consequences for Underrepresented STEM Students as a University Transitions to Remote Activities

新冠肺炎的流行促使世界各地的大学突然转向远程学习。这与一个关键的社会变化不谋而合，因为学生们被敦促离开校园，“社交距离”和原地避难；这种做法将扰乱社交网络功能，并可能导致孤立感、动力减弱和学习效果变差。更糟糕的是，对于学业准备不足的学生(例如，代表不足的少数族裔、第一代大学、社会经济地位低)和仍在适应大学生活(例如，建立社交网络、学习大学文化)的一年级学生来说，社会和学术后果可能更加严重。鉴于当前形势的不确定性，了解这场流行病及其引发的“社会距离”可能如何影响学生的社交网络，以及是否会导致社交和学业成绩的差异，这一点至关重要。这份快速报告是对美国国家科学基金会关于新冠肺炎大流行的亲爱同事的信的回应。该奖项由学习研究部的EHR核心研究(ECR)计划颁发，资金来自冠状病毒援助、救济和经济安全(CARE)法案。这个快速研究项目的目标是调查新冠肺炎疫情引发的向远程学习的转变如何影响STEM专业一年级学生的社交网络、心理社会适应和学业成绩，以及历史上更有可能离开STEM的亚组学生是否出现差异。这项研究将研究这些潜在的影响，以及加州大学欧文分校(UCI)现有的干预措施--增强型学术成功体验(EASE)计划--可能如何抵消风险。EASE是一个学习社区，旨在为准备不足的学生提高学业成绩，生物科学学院(Bio Sci)每年约1000名一年级专业的学生中有三分之一参与其中。到目前为止，关于干预的研究已经提供了强有力的因果证据，表明轻松成功地增加了动机、参与度和归属感，对STEM中通常代表较少的群体具有更强的影响。作为干预的一部分，研究人员收集了纵向网络数据，这些数据在规模(一个专业内约1,000名学生/年)和覆盖范围(响应率为85%-96%)方面都是独一无二的。这项研究将描述友谊和学习网络的变化，心理-社会适应，以及史无前例的向远程组织活动转移导致的学术成果。新的数据收集和分析将探讨向远程学习的转变是否会对STEM学生亚群的这些重要结果造成差异，以及EASE提供的学习社区是否可以缓解这些影响。通过补充数据收集，这项研究将考虑学生网络如何适应组织向远程学习的转变，以及学生在哪里获得他们需要的各种情感和工具支持。中介分析将提供对哪些网络特征解释转向远程学习的心理-社会和学术后果的洞察。更广泛地说，独特的数据将使评估社交网络如何适应大流行造成的社会层面的破坏，以及良好实施的机构支持如何抵消与大流行相关的预期风险。这一奖项反映了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。

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted universities worldwide to abruptly shift to remote learning. This coincides with a critical social change as students are urged to leave campus, “social distance,” and shelter-in-place; practices that will disrupt social network functioning and could lead to feelings of isolation, reduced motivation, and poorer learning outcomes. Worse, the social and academic consequences could be more severe for less academically prepared students (e.g., underrepresented minorities, first-generation college, low socioeconomic status) and first year students in particular, who are still adjusting to college life (e.g., building social networks, learning university culture). Given the uncertainty of the current situation, it is critical to understand how the pandemic and the "social distance" triggered by it may influence student social networks and whether disparities in social and academic outcomes result. This RAPID was submitted in response to the NSF Dear Colleague letter related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award is made by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program in the Division of Research on Learning, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The goal of this RAPID research project is to investigate how the shift to remote learning triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting social networks, psycho-social adjustment, and academic outcomes for first-year STEM majors, and whether disparities emerge for students from subgroups historically more likely to leave STEM. The research will examine these potential impacts, and how risks might be offset by an existing intervention at the University of California Irvine (UCI) -- the Enhanced Academic Success Experience (EASE) program. EASE is a learning community designed to improve academic outcomes for under-prepared students, with one-third of the approximately 1,000 first-year majors in the School of Biological Sciences (Bio Sci) participating each year. To date, research on the intervention has provided strong causal evidence that EASE has successfully increased motivation, engagement, and belongingness, with stronger effects for groups typically underrepresented within STEM. As part of the intervention, researchers have gathered longitudinal network data that are unique in both scale (~1,000 students/year within a major) and coverage (85-96% response rate). This research will characterize changes in friendship and study networks, psycho-social adjustment, and academic outcomes that result from the unprecedented shift to remote organizational activities. The new data collection and analysis will explore whether the shift to remote learning creates disparities in these important outcomes for subgroups of STEM students and whether the learning community provided by EASE may mitigate these effects. Through supplementary data collection, the study will consider how student networks have adapted to the organizational shift to remote learning and where students are obtaining the kinds of emotional and instrumental support they need. Mediation analysis will offer insight into which network characteristics explain psycho-social and academic consequences of the shift to remote learning. More generally, the unique data will enable assessment of how social networks adapt to societal-level disruption caused by the pandemic, and how well-implemented institutional support may offset the anticipated risks associated with the pandemic.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.