Collaborative Research: HSI Pilot Project: Research for Improved Student Experiences in STEM (RISE in STEM)

在“改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构（HSI计划）”的支持下，这个名为“改善STEM学生体验研究（RISE）”的第一轨道项目旨在通过在精选的STEM入门课程中实施改进的教学实践和学生支持，促进波多黎各泛美大学（IAUPR）庞塞和巴亚蒙校区学生在STEM方面的成功。利用合作本科生研究经验和学术建议，该计划旨在提高学生在“门户”实验课程中的成功率。这两个校区将在这个项目中合作，为99%的西班牙裔学生提供服务，其中大多数是低收入的第一代大学生。通过提高这些入门课程的成功率，STEM项目中的RISE将使这些学生能够坚持并成功获得STEM学位，从而扩大STEM的参与度。此外，该试点项目将产生证据，以支持第二轨道的资金和项目的扩展，以便未来在IAUPR的九个校区实现全系统制度化。在波多黎各泛美大学的庞塞和巴亚蒙校区，将在合作环境中设计和试点cure实验室课程，实施学术建议，并举办教师发展讲习班，作为提高学生认知和表现的机制。这个创新项目是基于不同校园团队之间合作的重要性，为未来的STEM专业人士提供强大的学习经验，包括培养21世纪研究生学习和就业的技能。期望学生在心理和行为上有所收获，如增强自信、自我效能感、项目所有权、科学认同和归属感。许多这些心理上的“收获”都是有证据支持的指标，用于量化学生观念的变化，这些变化与STEM课程保留率和毕业率的提高有关。该项目将产生新的知识，了解多校区、多教员、多同行领导的cure合作模式，结合学术指导，如何有助于提高hsi学生的认知和表现。该项目的外部评估将在专门为试点项目设计的前/后测试中测量学生对关键的、基于证据的结构（归属感、科学认同感、自我效能感、对STEM的兴趣和坚持STEM的意图）的看法，并将产生初步的纵向数据。最后，学生的表现将通过准实验设计方法进行测量和分析，使用匹配t检验来比较治疗和非治疗学生的成绩，以产生项目影响的证据。HSI计划旨在加强本科STEM教育，扩大STEM参与，并在HSI进行能力建设。考虑到hsi的多样性和背景，实现这些目标需要创新的方法来激励机构和社区转型，并促进基础研究(1)关于参与式学生学习，(2)关于如何有效地使STEM多样化和增加参与，以及(3)提高我们对如何在hsi建立机构能力的理解。HSI计划支持的项目也将借鉴这些方法，为如何实现这些目标提供新的知识。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。

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project, Research for Improved Student Experiences (RISE) in STEM aims to promote student success in STEM on the Ponce and Bayamon campuses of the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico (IAUPR) by implementing improved teaching practices and student supports in select introductory STEM courses. Using collaborative undergraduate research experiences and academic advising, this program seeks improve student success rates in “gateway” lab courses. The two campuses that will collaborate in this project to serve a population of students that is 99% Hispanic, majority low-income and first-generation college students. By improving success rates in these gateway courses, the RISE in STEM project will allow these students to persist and succeed in STEM degree attainment, thereby broadening participation in STEM. Additionally, this pilot program will generate evidence to support track 2 funding and expansion of the program for its future system-wide institutionalization at IAUPR’s nine campuses. CURE-laboratory courses, in a collaborative setting, will be designed and piloted, academic advisement will be implemented, and faculty development workshops will be conducted as mechanisms for improving student perceptions and performance on the Ponce and Bayamon Campuses of the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. This innovate project is based on the importance of collaborations between teams at different campuses which provide robust learning experiences for future STEM professionals, including developing skills for graduate studies and jobs in the 21st century. It is expected that students develop psychological and behavioral gains such as increased confidence, self-efficacy, project ownership, scientific identity and a sense of belonging. Many of these psychological “gains” are evidence-supported metrics for quantifying changes in student perceptions that are linked to improved retention and graduation rates in STEM. This project will generate new knowledge about how a multi-campus, multi-faculty, multi-peer leader collaborative model in CUREs, combined with academic advisement, can contribute to increased student perceptions and performance at HSIs. External evaluation of the program will measure student perceptions on key, evidence-based constructs (sense of belonging, science identity, self-efficacy, interest in STEM and intention to persist in STEM) in a pre/post-test designed specifically for the pilot program and will generate preliminary longitudinal data. Finally, student performance will be measured and analyzed via quasi-experimental design methods, comparing treatment and non-treatment student grades using matched t-tests to generate evidence of program impacts. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.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.