Pathways to Achieving STEM Success: Scholarships, Mentoring, and Development of STEM Identify to Support Undergraduate STEM Degree Completion

该项目将通过支持尤蒂卡学院表现出经济需要的成绩优异的低收入学生的留校和毕业，为满足全国对受过良好教育的科学家和技术人员的需求作出贡献。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为14名攻读生物学、生物化学、化学或地球科学学士学位的佩尔大学合格学生提供奖学金。这些学者将分成两组，并获得为期四年的奖学金。根据该大学的学生人口统计数据和项目吸引多元化申请人的招聘计划，该项目有可能扩大STEM中代表性不足的学生的参与，包括第一代大学生。除了获得奖学金外，奖学金获得者还将获得更多的新生指导、由专门的教师和同行导师提供的成功指导、专门的第一年研讨会、辅导、本科研究机会、职业发展和实习，以及一系列关于研究和专业途径的研讨会。这些基于证据的策略有可能培养学者在STEM领域的认同感，帮助他们在STEM领域取得成功并坚持下去。该项目还将惠及100多名其他STEM专业学生，他们将被邀请参加STEM研讨会和选定的职业和专业发展讲习班。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。该项目将招募、注册并支持保留学者直至毕业。它还旨在让几乎所有的学者毕业生在毕业后六个月内进入学士后的STEM项目或在STEM领域就业。该项目将产生关于同伴和教师指导对学者STEM身份和社区意识的不同影响的新知识，这两者都有助于STEM的持久性。一名社会科学研究人员将进行一项混合方法的研究，调查同伴和教师指导对STEM中学者的认同感/社区感的不同影响。该研究将包括对学者的STEM身份和与STEM坚持相关的社会心理结构的调查。本研究有可能为同侪导师和教师导师对同一学员的差异影响的研究基础提供补充。此外，该项目预计将产生关于STEM指导有效性的新知识，以及同伴和教师导师在多大程度上有助于学员的社区意识和认同感。对该项目进行全面的外部评估，将了解多方面的STEM支持计划对不同的、符合佩尔资格的学生的有效性。研究和评价的结果将在地方和国家会议上传播。项目团队打算发表关于项目结果和经验教训的以教学法和过程为重点的文章。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。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Utica College. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 14 unique Pell-eligible students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or geoscience. The Scholars will enter in two cohorts and receive four-year scholarships. Based on the University’s student demographics and the project’s recruitment plan for attracting diverse applicants, the project has the potential to broaden participation of students from populations that are under-represented in STEM, including first generation in college students. In addition to receiving scholarships, the Scholars will be supported through an expanded new student orientation, success coaching using dedicated faculty and peer mentors, dedicated first-year seminar sections, tutoring, undergraduate research opportunities, career development and internships, and a seminar series on research and professional pathways. These evidence-based strategies have the potential to develop Scholars’ sense of identity in STEM and help them succeed and persist in STEM. The project will also benefit more than 100 other STEM majors, who will be invited to participate in STEM seminars and selected career and professional development workshops.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project will recruit, enroll, and support retention of the Scholars to graduation. It also aims to place nearly all the Scholar graduates into post-baccalaureate STEM programs or employment in STEM within six months of graduation. The project will generate new knowledge about the differential impact of peer and faculty mentoring on scholars’ sense of STEM identity and community, both of which contribute to STEM persistence. A social science researcher will conduct a mixed-methods research study investigating the differential impact of peer and faculty mentoring on Scholars’ sense of identify/community in STEM. The study will include an investigation of Scholars' STEM identity and psychosocial constructs that are associated with persistence in STEM. This study has the potential to add to the research base on the differential impact of peer and faculty mentors for the same mentee. In addition, the project is expected to generate new knowledge on the efficacy of mentoring in STEM and the extent to which peer and faculty mentors contribute to mentees’ sense of community and identity. A comprehensive external evaluation of the project will result in knowledge on the efficacy of a multifaceted STEM support program for diverse, Pell-eligible students. Results from the research study and the evaluation will be disseminated at local and national conferences. The project team intends to publish pedagogy- and process-focused articles on project results and lesson learned. 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.