RAPID: Understanding and Mitigating the Effects of University Closures due to COVID-19 on Black Students in Physics at the Bachelor's Level

RAPID：了解和减轻因 COVID-19 导致大学关闭对物理学学士学位黑人学生的影响

• 批准号: 2032576
• 负责人: Tabbetha Dobbins
• 金额: $ 13.61万
• 依托单位: Rowan University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-06-15 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2032576&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Understanding; Mitigating; Effects; University

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: COVID-19 resulted in campus closures and online learning at many colleges and universities. These campus closures disrupted connections to educational support resources, mentorship (informal and formal), and co-curricular activities that enrich the students’ experiences. This project studies the impacts of the COVID-19 campus closures (and move to online learning) on African American (Black) students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy. While the data is available, this study will survey students to examine and document the impact of campus closures to educational persistence and resilience for this population of students. Findings may provide insights into how support structures (e.g. mentoring, tutoring, intrusive advising) can be effectively implemented when students undergo crisis, such as death of a close family member or friend, disruption to home support structures due to mass incarceration or deportation of one or both parents, serious illness involving the student or close family member. This body of work will provide a basis for examining the methods used to support students from other underrepresented and marginalized groups during crisis. TECHNICAL DETAILS: This study is being undertaken within the framework of outcomes gained by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) TEAM UP Task Force’s two-year study. Recommendations from this study enable physics and astronomy departments to better support African American (Black) students, many of whom already face well-documented obstacles to completing their degrees (due to other factors which are independent of COVID-19). Moreover, findings of this study extend to better understand and support students who undergo personal crises that require short-term or long-term absences from campus (even during normal campus operations). The project advances understanding of how to increase resilience toward degree completion for African American (Black) students during crises. These understandings could extrapolate to other marginalized populations of students. The importance of this work is that people's lives will be changed by increasing the relative percentage of these students who enter the technical workforce after having completed bachelor's degrees. The future job outlook in physics in the U.S. is promising, and access to these careers will provide the potential for a secure and stable financial future. This research lessens the likelihood that students will be left out of these job prospects due to the occurrence of crises during their pursuit of the bachelor’s degree. Crises that students face are more often personal crises, such as death of a close family member, serious illness to the student or close family member, effects of mass incarceration on families, or deportation of one or both parents. Likewise, economic crises resulting in the closures of some physics departmental occurring due to disasters such as storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes also present a disruption to physics departments and their students. This study bridges the learning from a sudden and collective crisis (i.e. COVID-19 campus closures) to well-designed actions that physics departments can take to address crises of a personal nature. This study provides useful contributions to better serve students and to prevent differential effects of crises on underrepresented minority 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.

非技术描述：COVID-19导致许多学院和大学校园关闭和在线学习。这些校园关闭中断了与教育支持资源、指导（非正式和正式）以及丰富学生经历的课外活动的联系。该项目研究了2019冠状病毒病校园关闭（并转向在线学习）对攻读物理和天文学学士学位的非裔美国人（黑人）学生的影响。在数据可用的情况下，本研究将对学生进行调查，以检查和记录校园关闭对这一学生群体的教育持久性和弹性的影响。调查结果可能有助于了解在学生遭遇危机时如何有效实施支持结构（如指导、辅导、侵入性建议），如亲密家庭成员或朋友死亡、由于父母一方或双方被大规模监禁或驱逐出境而导致家庭支持结构中断、学生或亲密家庭成员罹患严重疾病。这项工作将为审查在危机期间为其他代表性不足和边缘化群体的学生提供支持的方法提供基础。技术细节：这项研究是在美国物理学会（AIP）工作组两年研究成果的框架内进行的。这项研究的建议使物理和天文部门能够更好地支持非洲裔美国人（黑人）学生，其中许多人在完成学位方面已经面临着有理有据的障碍（由于与COVID-19无关的其他因素）。此外，本研究的发现延伸到更好地理解和支持那些经历个人危机的学生，这些学生需要短期或长期离开校园（即使在正常的校园运作期间）。该项目促进了对如何在危机期间提高非裔美国人（黑人）学生完成学位的弹性的理解。这些理解可以外推到其他被边缘化的学生群体。这项工作的重要性在于，通过增加这些学生在完成学士学位后进入技术劳动力市场的相对百分比，人们的生活将会改变。在美国，物理学的未来工作前景是很有希望的，进入这些职业将提供一个安全稳定的经济未来的潜力。这项研究减少了学生在攻读学士学位期间由于发生危机而被排除在这些就业前景之外的可能性。学生面临的危机往往是个人危机，如亲密家庭成员的死亡，学生或亲密家庭成员的严重疾病，大规模监禁对家庭的影响，或父母一方或双方被驱逐出境。同样，经济危机导致一些物理系因风暴、飓风和龙卷风等灾害而关闭，也给物理系和学生带来了干扰。本研究将从突发的集体危机（即COVID-19校园关闭）中吸取教训与物理系可以采取的精心设计的行动联系起来，以解决个人性质的危机。本研究为更好地服务学生和防止危机对代表性不足的少数民族学生的差异影响提供了有益的贡献。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。