Building a Chemistry and Biochemistry Targeted Learning Community: The Impact of Vertical Mentoring on STEM Student Outcomes

建立化学和生物化学有针对性的学习社区：垂直辅导对 STEM 学生成绩的影响

• 批准号: 2029167
• 负责人: Robert Iafe
• 金额: $ 99.99万
• 依托单位: California State University San Marcos Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-11-01 至 2025-10-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2029167&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Building; Chemistry; Biochemistry; Targeted; Learning

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at California State University San Marcos. This university is a Hispanic-serving Institution that serves a primarily commuter student population. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships of up to four years to 20 unique full-time students, in three cohorts. Scholarship recipients will be embedded in a 30-student Chemistry and Biochemistry Targeted Learning Community. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by linking scholarships with effective support activities that include a cohort model for coursework; peer, graduate student, faculty, and professional mentoring; and academic and professional workshops. Some learning community participants will become peer mentors in subsequent learning community cohorts to support the creation of a sustainable mentoring community. Given the university’s Hispanic-serving status, this project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM fields. It can also contribute new understanding about the impacts of a discipline-specific learning community with a multi-level vertical mentoring experience and co-curricular support on students’ advancement to STEM-related careers and/or graduate programs.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. A robust project evaluation will use a comparison group approach to probe the relative importance of the scholarship relative to other aspects of the model. Non-cognitive factors, such as sense of community, have also been demonstrated to affect STEM student persistence. However, little is known about how these factors affect chemistry and biochemistry students at a Hispanic-serving Institution with a commuter population. A mixed-methods study will investigate the sense of student community and the effect of project activities on departmental and institutional change. The project has the potential to advance understanding about how student community develops and how it relates to retention rates and post-graduate competitiveness in STEM careers. Formative and summative evaluation data will be collected through surveys, focus groups, and institutional records. Results of this project will be made available through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and outreach to other four-year campuses. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.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.

该项目将通过支持加州州立大学圣马科斯分校（California State University San Marcos）表现出经济需求的优秀低收入家庭学生的保留和毕业，为满足全国对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献。这所大学是一所西班牙裔服务机构，主要为通勤学生提供服务。该项目为期五年，将为三批20名全日制学生提供最多四年的奖学金。奖学金获得者将被纳入一个由30名学生组成的化学和生物化学目标学习社区。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与有效的支持活动联系起来，提高学生在STEM领域的持久性，这些活动包括课程作业的队列模型；同辈、研究生、教师和专业指导；以及学术和专业研讨会。一些学习社区参与者将在随后的学习社区群体中成为同伴导师，以支持创建一个可持续的指导社区。鉴于该大学的西班牙裔服务地位，该项目有可能扩大STEM领域的参与。它还可以为特定学科的学习社区的影响提供新的理解，该社区具有多层次的垂直指导经验和课外支持，可以帮助学生进入stem相关的职业和/或研究生课程。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。稳健的项目评估将使用比较组方法来探索相对于模型其他方面的奖学金的相对重要性。非认知因素，如社区意识，也被证明会影响STEM学生的坚持。然而，对于这些因素如何影响一所有通勤人口的西班牙裔服务机构的化学和生物化学学生，人们知之甚少。一项混合方法研究将调查学生社区意识和项目活动对部门和机构变革的影响。该项目有可能促进对学生社区如何发展及其与STEM职业的保留率和研究生竞争力的关系的理解。形成性和总结性评估数据将通过调查、焦点小组和机构记录收集。该项目的结果将通过同行评审的出版物、会议报告和向其他四年制大学的推广提供。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。