Broadening Participation in STEM Careers through High-Impact Practices

该项目将通过支持底特律大学（University of Detroit Mercy）这所私立城市大学中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。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为20名攻读工程、数学或计算机科学四年制学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。学者将分为两组，并获得长达四年的年度奖学金支持。该项目旨在通过与现有的校园资源和外部工业合作伙伴合作，实施可持续的高影响力实践，提高学者的保留率、毕业率和就业率。学者们将参与促进个人、职业和学术发展的活动，包括参与群体建设活动、团体咨询、多个行业实习、同行、教师和行业指导。该项目有可能扩大STEM劳动力的参与，并解决该地区对熟练劳动力的需求。这个项目的结果可以为其他高等教育机构提供信息，告诉他们如何在资源有限的环境中实施研究证明的学生保留做法，以支持不同的学生。该项目的总体目标是提高STEM领域低收入、高成就本科生的学位完成率。该项目旨在：(1)在个人和专业上支持学生攻读STEM学位；(2)提高学生在STEM社区的职业认同感和归属感；(3)提高学生对STEM职业的兴趣。对成功的STEM本科课程的研究已经确定了高影响力的实践，包括队列建设、住宅社区、指导和研究经验。然而，关于如何在资源有限、服务于不同学生群体的小型机构中复制这种高影响力的做法，知识是有限的。本项目将评估这样一种假设，即这些机构能够以有效和可持续的方式模仿这些经研究证实的做法。具体而言，该项目旨在探索行业实习、团体咨询经验和非住宅群体建设对学生STEM身份和成功的影响之间的关系。该项目有可能为关键支持系统提供新的见解，这些系统对提高学生在STEM职业生涯中的持久性和安置最具影响力。项目评估将使用混合方法来分析过程数据、学生自我评估、访谈和焦点小组、保留/毕业数据以及研究生就业安置率。项目模型和研究成果将通过在STEM教育会议上的演讲以及在会议论文集和STEM教育期刊上的出版物进行传播。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, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at University of Detroit Mercy, an private, urban university. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 20 unique full-time students pursuing four-year degrees in engineering, mathematics, or computer science. Scholars will enter in two cohorts and receive up to four years of annual scholarship support. The project intends to increase Scholars’ retention, graduation, and employment rates by working with existing on-campus resources and external industrial partners to implement sustainable high-impact practices. Scholars will engage in activities fostering personal, career, and academic development including participation in cohort-building activities, group counseling, multiple industry internships, and peer, faculty, and industry mentoring. The project has the potential to broaden participation in the STEM workforce and address a regional need for a skilled workforce. Results from this project could inform other higher education institutions about how to implement research-proven student retention practices to support diverse students in resource-limited environments.The overall goal of the project is to increase degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates in STEM fields. The project aims to: (1) support students personally and professionally in the pursuit of STEM degrees; (2) improve students’ professional identity and sense of belonging in the STEM community; and (3) increase student interest in STEM careers. Research on successful STEM undergraduate programs has identified high-impact practices, including cohort building, residential communities, mentorship, and research experiences. However, knowledge is limited regarding how to replicate such high-impact practices in small institutions with limited resources that serve heterogeneous student populations. This project will assess the hypothesis that such institutions can emulate these research-proven practices in an effective and sustainable manner. Specifically, the project seeks to explore the relationship between industry internships, group counseling experiences, and non-residential cohort-building impact on students’ STEM identity and success. This project has the potential to provide new insights on the critical support systems most influential in enhancing student persistence and placement in STEM careers for a diverse undergraduate population. Project evaluation will use a mixed-methods approach to analyze process data, student self-assessments, interviews and focus groups, retention/graduation data, and post-graduate career placement rates. The program model and research findings will be disseminated through presentations at STEM education conferences and through publications in conference proceedings and STEM education journals. 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.