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

通过奖学金、同伴学术辅导和职业教育课程，支持多元化本科 STEM 群体的毅力和完成学位

• 批准号: 2030972
• 负责人: Kevin Johnson
• 金额: $ 98.91万
• 依托单位: Pacific University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-05-01 至 2026-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2030972&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Supporting; Perseverance; Degree; Completion; Diverse

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.

该项目将通过支持太平洋大学表现出经济需要的成绩优异的低收入学生的保留和毕业，促进国家对受过良好教育的科学家和数学家的需求。 这所大学是一个小型的住宿本科文科机构，专注于为区域和当地服务不足的人群提供服务。在五年的时间里，该项目将为65名攻读生物信息学、生物学、化学、计算机科学、环境科学、数学和物理学理学学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。在这个“小学院模式”的学生群体将包括一年级，返回，和转学生。 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，通过他们的本科学习的第四年。该项目旨在为一群在STEM学科和大学学年都多样化的学者提供服务。 预计这种多样性将创造一个环境，通过同伴支持和跨学科STEM学习和发现促进学术和社会成功。在大学现有学生支持服务的基础上，该项目将试点测试和评估两个新的STEM学生学术支持计划的效果：结构化的STEM特定同行学术辅导和指导，以及三门课程的STEM职业教育课程。该项目旨在促进对财政支持，教师指导，同伴指导和指导，职业教育和队列发展可以协同支持学生坚持STEM学科学位的程度的理解。 因此，它有可能扩大国家STEM劳动力的参与。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入，高成就的本科生的STEM学位完成与证明财政需要。该计划将支持学者完成学士学位STEM学位，并为STEM职业做好准备。该项目的方案要素包括每周研讨会会议，同行学术辅导和STEM职业教育课程。对这些目标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的最佳做法。为了评估学者对STEM学科的专业和社会方向的发展，将通过纵向研究对该队列进行评估，该研究将调查学生在STEM课程工作中的自我报告“归属感”，STEM自我认同，感知的教师和机构支持，感知的父母/家庭支持以及STEM职业方向。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教育研究中关于提供STEM特定同行学术辅导和职业教育课程的最佳实践的知识差距。除了通过演讲和出版物向STEM教育界传播外，本研究的结论还将在专业组织内传播，为本科生提供学术支持和职业服务。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得STEM领域的学位。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术成功，保留，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价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。