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)有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生的留校和毕业，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。亚利桑那州大学是一个通勤校园，位于俄亥俄州阿克伦市中心。在为期6年的时间里，该项目将为103名正在攻读生物医学工程、化学和生物分子工程、土木工程、电气工程、计算机工程、生物学或化学学士学位的学生提供奖学金。三个S-STEM学者队列将从第一年到毕业获得奖学金支持。大约一半的学者将被直接录取到他们选择的系，一半将被非直接录取的学生录取，大约10%将被部分时间制录取。纳入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，拟议的计划还将为学者提供：S-STEM特定学习社区；特定群体实验室；同行和教职员工指导；跨越周末、工作日和晚上的特定群体数学背诵/辅导；来自项目调查人员的额外学术建议；以及研究机会。这些集体支助方案活动将使我们能够提高来自俄亥俄州经济最贫困地区，包括阿巴拉契亚地区的学生的留校率和毕业率。在案例研究的框架内，记录哪些干预措施对留住学生的影响最大，可以提供可在其他大学实施的工具，以支持有经济需要的有才华的全日制和非全日制学生，特别是来自代表人数不足的群体的学生，包括妇女和残疾人。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位毕业率。该项目将通过为学生提供干预措施，重点放在解决经济障碍、数学课程中有针对性的学术支持、同行和教职员工指导以及参与学习社区，来检验留校率和毕业率的增长。在工程学科中，缺乏记忆常常被归因于微积分序列。需要重修微积分预科、微积分I或微积分II往往会导致学生花费更长的时间才能毕业。这种影响对兼职学生来说更为明显。这个项目将调查专门用于解决与微积分课程相关的记忆问题的专用数学辅导/背诵是否会提高通过率。同辈和教职员工辅导旨在增加学生的归属感。该项目还将考察参加S STEM项目对学生STEM自我效能感、STEM归属感和职业意识的影响。项目活动对学生保持能力的影响将采用趋同的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取得成功的理解，社会认知因素影响着兼职和全日制学生的坚持性和职业选择。我们的研究结果将通过教学研究所(ITL)研讨会在亚利桑那大学校园内传播。结果还将通过在全国国际交易日志会议上的陈述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NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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优势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.