Cardinal Science Scholars: Scholarships and Supports to Increase Undergraduate Students' Retention and Graduation in STEM Fields

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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 Otterbein College, a private liberal arts college. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to twenty-two full time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences, biochemistry and molecular biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics. The Scholars will be admitted in two annual cohorts and receive up to four-years of scholarship support. In addition to scholarships, the project will provide Scholars with opportunities to engage in academic and non-academic activities demonstrated to increase retention and graduation in STEM. Activities include participation in a summer immersion orientation program, mentoring by peers and STEM faculty, enrollment in a STEM Seminar course, and opportunities to engage in undergraduate research and internships. The combination of scholarships with participation in student support is intended to contribute to students’ academic and career success and, in turn, to increase the number of highly qualified STEM graduates ready to join the workforce or enroll in graduate studies. The project plans to increase the diversity of students in STEM by enhancing its current recruitment strategies to encourage students from traditionally underserved groups to attend the college. To advance understanding of student success in STEM, this project will examine how students’ beliefs in their ability to succeed in STEM affect their expectations for success and persistence in STEM. The goals of this project are to: (1) recruit academically talented STEM students who are low-income with financial need, including students who are first-generation in college and students from underserved groups; (2) increase scholar engagement and connection to their majors, peers, faculty, and STEM professionals; (3) achieve improved retention, graduation, and STEM graduate school/workforce placement; and (4) foster Scholar success by reducing their beliefs in an intrinsic and fixed intellectual ability in STEM (field-specific ability beliefs) and increasing their expectations for success in their majors. Drawing on Expectancy Value Theory, the project will conduct a mixed methods comparison study to investigate whether students’ intrinsic field-specific ability beliefs in an academic domain relate to their expectations for success, with resulting influence on retention in STEM. It is hypothesized that a decrease in students’ beliefs about their intrinsic field-specific ability will increase their expectations for successful persistence in STEM. The mixed methods evaluation will utilize Stufflebeam’s (2007, 2017) management-oriented approach, which focuses on context, input, process, and product for project improvement and accountability. Project findings will be disseminated through the project website, presentations to local, regional, and national stakeholders, professional meetings, and publications. 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.