Boosting Access to Data Science Scholars

该项目将通过支持马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为满足全国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。该项目为期6年，将为40名在信息与计算机科学学院攻读信息学或计算机科学学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。一年级学生将获得四年的奖学金支持，转学生将获得两年的奖学金。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与基于证据的支持联系起来，提高学生在STEM领域的持久性，包括教师和近同行指导、教师领导的咨询、指导的研究经验、研究生院和职业准备，以及参加特定学科的会议。学者将与教师和同行导师合作，制定个人学术计划，概述他们感兴趣的领域和实现目标的步骤。该项目还将支持旨在提高一年级学生保留率和缩短STEM课程完成时间的课程改进。马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校信息学专业的数据科学重点以及该机构所服务的不同学生群体将有助于扩大在关键劳动力领域的参与。该项目也有可能增加对计算机应用教育重点对学生群体的招聘、保留和完成时间的影响的理解。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。有三个具体目标：扩大获得高质量数据科学职业和研究途径的途径；提高一年级学生的保留率；减少社区大学转学生完成学业的时间。外部压力，如经济压力，再加上社会心理因素，如冒名顶替现象、刻板印象威胁和缺乏榜样，都被证明会影响学生在STEM领域的成功。应用教育重点与特定学科的学生成功支持对第一代学生和STEM中代表性不足的人群的保留和坚持的影响知之甚少。通过访谈和其他定性方法，对该项目的持续评估将促进对学生学者对特定学科支持服务的感知功效的理解，以及追求应用教育重点的重要性。这些结果将与现有的报告，如NSSE（国家学生参与研究）和马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校年度高年级调查的结果进行比较。此外，评估社区大学转学学生和四年级学生的成功努力，将使项目负责人能够识别和报告这两个群体的需求满足和未满足的领域。所吸取的经验教训将传播给更广泛的STEM和计算机科学教育界。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 Massachusetts Amherst. Over its 6-year duration, this project will provide scholarships to 40 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Informatics or Computer Science in the College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS). First-year students will receive four years of scholarship support and transfer students will receive two-year scholarships. This project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by linking scholarships with evidence-based supports, including faculty and near-peer mentoring, faculty led advising, mentored research experiences, graduate school and career preparation, and participation in discipline-specific conferences. Scholars will work with faculty and near-peer mentors to develop individual academic plans outlining their areas of interest and steps toward achieving their goals. The project will also support curriculum improvements aimed at increasing first-year student retention and decreasing time to completion in STEM. The data science focus of the informatics major at UMass Amherst and the diverse population of students served by the institution will contribute to broadening participation in a critical workforce area. The project also has the potential to increase understanding about the impact that an applied educational emphasis within computing can have on the recruitment, retention, and time to completion for this student population. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There are three specific aims: expand access to high quality data science career and research pathways; improve the retention rate of first-year students; and decrease time to completion for community college transfer students. External pressures such as financial stress coupled with psycho-social factors such as imposter phenomenon, stereotype threat, and lack of role models have all been documented to impact student success in STEM. Less is known about the impact of an applied educational focus coupled with discipline-specific student success supports on the retention and persistence of students who are first-generation and from populations underrepresented in STEM. Through interviews and other qualitative methods, the ongoing evaluation of the project will advance understanding of the student scholars’ perceived efficacy of the discipline specific support services and the significance of pursuing an applied educational focus. These results will be compared to existing reports such as the NSSE (National Study of Student Engagement) and to the results of the annual UMass Amherst Senior Survey. Additionally, evaluating student success efforts across the parallel cohorts of community college transfer and 4-year students will enable project leaders to recognize and report areas where the met and unmet needs of the two populations diverge. Lessons learned will be disseminated to the broader STEM and computer science education community. 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.