Financial and Programmatic Supports to Prepare Undergraduates for Work in Technology Fields

该项目将有助于满足国家对熟练的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。为此，它将通过支持匹兹堡技术学院经证实有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生的留校和毕业来实现这一点。该学院是一家非营利性的私立机构，在30多个领域提供理科副学士和理科学士学位。在五年内，该计划将为25名攻读信息技术、网络管理、信息技术、安全和取证、计算机编程或电子工程技术的全日制学生提供两年制奖学金。这些学者还将受益于教师指导，以及参与协调班级和服务学习项目，例如向公立学校的学生教授STEM概念。从该项目中获得的见解将帮助匹兹堡技术学院更好地了解最能支持他们的学生完成课程和学位，并为进入STEM劳动力做好准备的财政和学术支持。此外，项目活动和成果将与其他两年制学院分享，从而为其他机构在招收、留住和研究生副STEM学位课程方面所做的努力提供信息。该项目的目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位毕业率。该项目有三个目标：(I)确保从学期到学期留住85%的学者；(Ii)确保75%的学者按时毕业；(Iii)确保90%的留住的学者在毕业后六个月内受雇于与STEM相关的工作或转到四年制院校。该项目团队假设，经济援助和特定的计划支持将对学生群体产生不同的影响。为了验证这一假设，项目团队将进行研究，以确定提高学生保留率的有效方法，并区分哪些支持对不同的学生群体最有效。该项目将解决两个研究问题：(I)财政或方案支持在留住两年制副学士学位课程中有较高经济需求的学术天赋学生方面是更有效的？以及(Ii)具体支持的有效性是否因学生的性别、种族和校内校外居住地的不同而不同？项目成果将通过会议报告和期刊文章在学院内以及与更广泛的STEM教育研究人员社区共享。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学业成功、留住、转移、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。该奖项反映了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。

This project will help meet the national need for skilled scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. It will do so by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with verified financial need at Pittsburgh Technical College. This College is a non-profit, private institution that offers Associate of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in more than thirty fields. Over five years, the project will provide two-year scholarships to 25 full-time students who are pursuing Associate Degrees in Information Technology, Network Administration, Information Technology, Security and Forensics, Computer Programming, or Electronics Engineering Technology. These Scholars will also benefit from faculty mentoring, as well as participation in coordinated classes and service-learning projects, such as teaching STEM concepts to public school students. Insights gained from this project will help Pittsburgh Technical College better understand the financial and academic supports that best support their students to complete their classes and degrees, ready to enter the STEM workforce. In addition, project activities and outcomes will be shared with other two-year colleges, thus informing the efforts of other institutions to recruit, retain, and graduate students in associate STEM degree programs. The goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project has three objectives: (i) ensure that 85% of the Scholars are retained from semester to semester; (ii) ensure that 75% of the Scholars graduate on time; and (iii) ensure that 90% of all retained Scholars are employed in a STEM-related job or transfer to a four-year institution within six months of graduation. The project team hypothesizes that financial aid and specific programmatic supports will differentially affect groups of students. To test this hypothesis, the project team will conduct research to identify effective ways to increase student retention rates and to distinguish which supports are most effective for different student groups. The project will address two research questions: (i) Are financial or programmatic supports more effective in retaining academically talented students with high financial need in two-year, associate degree STEM degree programs? and (ii) Does the effectiveness of specific supports differ according to students’ gender, race, and residency on versus off campus? Project results will be shared across the College and with the broader community of STEM education researchers through conference presentations and journal articles. 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.