Enhancing Underrepresented Participation ​in Mathematics & Statistics: Mentoring From Junior to Master’s

该项目将有助于对受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员的国家需要，通过支持高成就，低收入的学生在马萨诸塞州阿默斯特大学证明经济需要的保留和毕业。在其6年的时间里，该项目将资助奖学金，以30个独特的全日制学生谁是追求数学学士学位和硕士学位的统计或应用数学在一个加一年。第三年的本科生将获得长达三年的奖学金。该项目旨在通过将财务支持和教师和同行的全面结构化指导结合起来，以定期会议和对齐课程的形式增加数学的招聘和坚持。除了奖学金，学生还提供夏季研究津贴以及学费减免和最后一年的半职助教。该项目的一个重点是通过与几个行业合作伙伴的合作为职业生涯做准备。该项目将有助于我们了解来自代表性不足和历史上被排斥的人口的本科生在数学科学方面取得成功的共同障碍，无论是通过项目团队进行的研究，还是通过数学科学少数民族中心对教师进行的广泛培训。如果实施，该项目将通过增加具有数学学士学位和应用数学或统计学硕士学位的高技能毕业生，为发展多元化，具有全球竞争力的STEM劳动力做出贡献。该项目还有可能增进对最佳做法的了解，以增加低收入、代表性不足和历来被排斥的数学学士学位和应用数学和统计学硕士学位获得者的人数。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就的本科生与证明财政需要完成STEM学位。现有的跨领域研究表明，追求本科和研究生学位的坚持和成就受到学生自我效能感的影响，自我效能感指的是他们对自己能力的信念，他们参与目标设定活动以及他们对结果的期望。然而，很少有人知道现有的研究如何适用于数学科学的学生，特别是那些也来自代表性不足和历史上被排斥的人群。该项目将调查自我效能如何受到参与拟议活动的影响，目标设定如何影响应用数学或统计学硕士课程的成功完成，以及在参与拟议活动的三年中，结果预期如何变化和变化。该项目的结果将通过同行评审的文章和在会议上的介绍提供。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得STEM领域的学位。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术成功，保留，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 fund scholarships to 30 unique full time students who are pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a master’s degree in Statistics or Applied Mathematics in a single plus-one year. Third year undergraduate students will receive up to three years of scholarships. This project aims to increase recruitment into and persistence in Mathematics by combining financial support and comprehensive structured mentoring from faculty and peers in the form of regular meetings and aligned coursework. In addition to scholarships, students are provided summer research stipends as well as a tuition waiver and half-time teaching assistantship during the final year. A key focus of the project will be career preparation through collaborations with several industry partners. The project will contribute to our understanding of common barriers to success in the mathematical sciences for undergraduate students from underrepresented and historically excluded populations, both through research conducted by the project team and through extensive training for faculty through the Center for Minorities in the Mathematical Sciences. If implemented, the project will contribute to the development of a diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce by adding highly skilled graduates with bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and master’s degrees in Applied Mathematics or Statistics. The project also has the potential to advance knowledge of best practices for increasing the number of low-income, underrepresented, and historically excluded recipients of bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and master’s degrees in Applied Mathematics and Statistics. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Existing research across fields suggests that persistence and achievement in pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees is influenced by students’ self-efficacy, which refers to their belief in their own capabilities, their participation in goal setting activities, and their outcome expectations. However, little is known about how well this existing research applies to students in the mathematical sciences, especially those who are also from underrepresented and historically excluded populations. This project will investigate how self-efficacy is impacted by participation in the proposed activities, how goal setting impacts successful completion of a plus-one master’s program in Applied Mathematics or Statistics, and how outcome expectations vary and change throughout three years of participation in the proposed activities. Results of this project will be made available through peer-reviewed articles and through presentations at conferences. 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.