Increasing retention of part-time and full-time STEM students with scholarships, mentoring and mathematics tutoring

该项目将通过支持阿克伦大学（UA）表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献。UA是一所通勤校园，位于俄亥俄州阿克伦市中心。该计划为期6年，将资助103名攻读生物医学工程、化学与生物分子工程、土木工程、电子工程、计算机工程、生物学或化学学士学位的学生。三名S-STEM学者将获得从第一年到毕业的奖学金支持。大约一半的学者将被直接录取到他们选择的专业，一半将是非直接录取的学生，大约10%将被兼职录取。包括非全日制学生将为经常被忽视的学生群体提供经济支持，并有可能提高这些学生的保留率。除了奖学金支持外，拟议的计划还将为学者提供：S-STEM特定的学习社区；cohort-specific实验室;同伴和教师指导；针对特定群体的数学背诵/辅导，涵盖周末、工作日和晚上时间；项目调查员提供的额外学术建议；还有研究机会。这些集体支持计划活动将使我们能够提高来自俄亥俄州经济最不利地区的学生的留校率和毕业率，包括阿巴拉契亚地区。在案例研究的框架内，记录哪些干预措施对学生保留产生了最大的影响，可以为其他大学提供工具，以支持有经济需求的有才华的全日制和非全日制学生的保留和毕业，特别是来自代表性不足的群体的学生，包括妇女和残疾人。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。该项目将通过为学生提供干预措施，重点解决财务障碍，在数学课程中提供有针对性的学术支持，同伴和教师指导以及参与学习社区，来检查留校率和毕业率的提高情况。通常，工程学科中缺乏保留归因于微积分序列。需要重新学习微积分预科，微积分I或微积分II通常导致学生需要更长的时间才能毕业。这种影响在非全日制学生中更为明显。该项目将调查专门用于解决与微积分课程相关的留存问题的数学辅导/背诵是否会提高通过率。同伴和教师辅导旨在增强学生的归属感。该项目还将研究参与S-STEM项目对学生STEM自我效能感、STEM归属感和STEM职业意识的影响方式。项目活动对学生留校的影响将采用融合混合方法设计进行调查。这个项目有可能促进对学生在一年级数学课上的成功，社会认知因素影响兼职和全日制学生的坚持和职业选择的理解。我们的研究结果将通过教学与学习研究所（ITL）研讨会在UA校园内传播。研究结果还将通过在全国国际教育课程会议上的发言和向特定学科期刊提交的文章传播给其他城市通勤学校。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at The University of Akron (UA). UA is a commuter campus located in the center of downtown Akron, Ohio. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 103 unique students who are pursuing Bachelor of Science degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Biology, or Chemistry. Three S-STEM scholar cohorts will receive scholarship support from their first year to graduation. Approximately half of the scholars will be directly admitted to their department of choice, half will be non-direct admit students, and approximately 10% will be enrolled part time. Inclusion of part-time students will provide financial support to a student group often overlooked and has the potential to increase retention rates of these students. In addition to scholarship support, the proposed program will provide the scholars: an S-STEM specific learning community; cohort-specific laboratories; peer and faculty mentoring; cohort-specific mathematics recitation/tutoring spanning weekends, weekdays and evening times; additional academic advising from project investigators; and research opportunities. These collective support programming activities will enable us to increase the retention and graduation rates of students from the most economically disadvantaged regions of the State of Ohio, including Appalachia. Within the framework of a case study, documenting which interventions achieved the most impact on student retention can provide tools that can be implemented at other universities to support retention and graduation of talented full-time and part-time students with financial needs, especially students from underrepresented groups, including women and persons with disabilities. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This project will examine the increase in retention and graduation by providing students with interventions focusing on addressing financial barriers, targeted academic supports in math courses, peer and faculty mentoring and engagement in learning communities. Frequently, the lack of retention in engineering disciplines is attributed to the calculus sequence. The need to retake Pre-Calculus, Calculus I or Calculus II often leads to students taking longer to graduate. This effect is more pronounced for part-time students. This project will investigate if a dedicated math tutoring/recitation, used to specifically address retention issues associated with the calculus classes, will improve pass rates. Peer and faculty mentoring aims to increase students’ sense of belonging. The project will also examine ways that participating in the S-STEM program influences students' self-efficacy in STEM, sense of belonging and career awareness for STEM. The impact of program activities on students' retention will be investigated using a convergent mixed methods design. This project has the potential to advance understanding pertaining to student success in first-year math classes, social-cognitive factors impact the persistence and career choice of part-time and full-time students. The results of our study will be disseminated on the UA campus via Institute of Teaching and Learning (ITL) seminars. Results will also be disseminated to other urban commuter schools by presentations at the national ITL conference and articles submitted to discipline specific journals. 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.