Encouraging the Participation of Neurodiverse Students in STEM Graduate Programs to Radically Enhance the Creativity of the Professional Workforce

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Neurodiverse individuals, including those with ADHD, dyslexia, and frequently co-occurring conditions like dysgraphia and dyscalculia, have unique skills that may be assets in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM) fields such as risk taking, divergent thinking, and spatial visualization. Encouraging the participation of these students in STEM graduate programs will significantly benefit the creativity of our professional workforce, which in turn will help to identify groundbreaking solutions to the large-scale and complex scientific and technological challenges facing the nation. In addition to supporting national prosperity and competitiveness, increasing the participation of neurodiverse individuals in graduate programs will significantly benefit the well-being of these marginalized individuals who are currently highly underrepresented in STEM education. This National Science Foundation Innovations of Graduate Education (IGE) award to the University of Connecticut will embrace a strength-based approach towards neurodiversity. By identifying the nature of the challenges that neurodiverse students face in the prevailing one-size-fits-all model of STEM graduate education, this project aims to pilot and test innovative approaches to improve the sense of belonging, productivity, and overall experience of neurodiverse graduate students. In doing so, this project will generate knowledge that informs the development of more inclusive educational practices that capitalize on the unique talents of neurodiverse individuals. These practices will support the academic success of neurodiverse students and empower these individuals to contribute to future scientific and technological advancements. Changing the paradigm of disability, dysfunction, and disorder to one of diversity not only enhances the participation of nontraditional learners in STEM education but also benefits society and the nation at large.By adopting a strength-based approach toward neurodiversity, this project will be at the forefront of efforts to promote a culture of inclusivity in STEM graduate education. Toward this end, the project employs a theory of change model with four integrated activities to pilot and test easy-to-implement interventions with high potential to support the success of students with ADHD and dyslexia in STEM graduate programs. Activities will encourage participation of these populations of students by adopting a strength-based approach toward neurodiversity. This project aims to evaluate three core hypotheses: 1) increasing neurodiverse students’ awareness of their unique strengths and challenges enhances their self-efficacy and self-advocacy, 2) providing opportunities for peer-to-peer interaction enhances the sense of belonging and experience of neurodiverse students in STEM graduate programs, and 3) providing writing interventions focused on students’ metacognitive skills enhances their writing productivity. The data from the integrated research plan and formal evaluation will generate critical knowledge for the scale-up of the proposed activities and inform future enhancements of STEM graduate education. This project will generate data on the efficacy of evidence-based approaches and interventions that are inspired by the framework of positive psychology to inform the development of an inclusive graduate education environment. This knowledge will be shared with engineering educators through a workshop at the ASEE annual meeting and formal publications. Supported by a strong institutional commitment, the multidisciplinary team of principal investigators and the diverse project advisory board composed of university administrators, researchers, industry leaders, philanthropists, and graduate students will guide the recruitment, data collection, data analysis, dissemination, and outreach activities of the project.The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.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.