Supporting Perseverance and Degree Completion in a Diverse Undergraduate STEM Cohort through Scholarships, Peer Academic Coaching, and a Career Education Curriculum

该项目将通过支持太平洋大学高成就、低收入、有经济需求的学生留校和毕业，促进国家对受过良好教育的科学家和数学家的需求。这所大学是一所小型住宿本科文科院校，专注于为地区和当地服务不足的人群提供服务。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为65名正在攻读生物信息学、生物、化学、计算机科学、环境科学、数学和物理学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。这种“小学院模式”的学生将包括一年级学生、返校学生和转学学生。学者将获得两到四年的奖学金支持和同时有针对性的支持服务，直到他们本科学习的第四年。该项目旨在服务于一群在STEM学科和大学学年都不同的学者。预计这种多样性将创造一种环境，通过同行支持和跨学科STEM学习和发现促进学术和社会成功。在该大学现有学生支持服务的基础上，该项目将对两个新的STEM学生学术支持计划的效果进行试点测试和评估：结构化的STEM专门针对同伴的学术指导和指导，以及一个三门课程的STEM职业教育课程。该项目旨在促进对财政支持、教师指导、同行指导和指导、职业教育和队列发展可以在多大程度上协同支持学生在STEM学科获得学位的理解。因此，它具有扩大参与国家STEM工作的潜力。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生完成STEM学位。该计划将支持学者完成学士学位STEM学位，并为他们的STEM职业生涯做好准备。该项目的方案要素包括每周一次的研讨会、同行学术辅导和STEM职业教育课程。对这些有针对性的方案要素的形成性评估将为正在进行的实施提供信息，并确定支持学生坚持STEM的最佳实践。为了评估学者对STEM学科的专业和社会取向的发展，将通过一项纵向研究对队列进行评估，该研究将调查学生在STEM课程作业、STEM自我认同、感受到的教师和机构支持、感受到的父母/家庭支持，以及STEM职业取向方面的自我归属感。参与者的学术和专业成果将与他们的专业和社会发展以及参与项目干预相关。该项目将解决中学后STEM教育研究在提供STEM特定同行学术指导和职业教育课程的最佳做法方面的知识差距。除了通过演讲和出版物向STEM教育界传播外，这项研究的结论还将在专业组织内传播，以提供本科生学术支持和就业服务。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 contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists and mathematicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Pacific University. This University is a small residential undergraduate liberal arts institution with a focus on serving regional and local underserved populations. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 65 unique full-time students who are pursuing Bachelor of Science degrees in bioinformatics, biology, chemistry, computer science, environmental science, mathematics, and physics. Students in this ‘small-college-model’ cohort will include first-year, returning, and transfer students. Scholars will receive two to four years of scholarship support and concurrent targeted support services through their fourth year of undergraduate study. The project is designed to serve a cohort of Scholars that is diverse in both STEM discipline and academic year in college. It is expected that this diversity will create an environment that promotes academic and social success through peer support and interdisciplinary STEM learning and discovery. Building on the University’s existing student support services, the project will pilot test and evaluate the effects of two new academic support programs for STEM students: structured STEM-specific peer academic coaching and mentoring, and a three-course STEM career education curriculum. The project seeks to advance understanding of the extent to which financial support, faculty mentoring, peer coaching and mentoring, career education, and cohort development may synergistically support student persistence to degrees in STEM disciplines. As a result, it has the potential to broaden participation in the national STEM workforce.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This program will support Scholars’ completion of baccalaureate STEM degrees and prepare them for STEM careers. Programmatic elements of the project include weekly seminar meetings, peer academic coaching, and a STEM career education curriculum. Formative assessment of these targeted programmatic elements will inform ongoing implementation and identify best practices for supporting students' persistence in STEM. To evaluate Scholars’ development of a professional and social orientation toward STEM disciplines, the cohort will be evaluated via a longitudinal study that will survey students’ self-reported ‘belonging’ in STEM course work, STEM self-identification, perceived faculty and institutional support, perceived parental/family support, and STEM career orientation. Participant’s academic and professional outcomes will be correlated to their professional and social development as well as participation in the project interventions. This project will address a knowledge gap in post-secondary STEM education research regarding best practices for delivery of STEM-specific peer academic coaching and career education curriculum. In addition to dissemination to the STEM education community through presentations and publications, the conclusions of this study will be disseminated within professional organizations for undergraduate academic support and career services. 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.