The Intersection of Science Identity and Success for Low-Income, Academically-Talented Students

该项目将通过支持佐治亚州贝里学院有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生的留校和毕业，来促进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。在为期六年的时间里，这个项目将资助二十一(21)名高成就、低收入的本科STEM专业生物化学、生物、化学、数学和物理专业的学生。除了资金支持外，该项目还将通过以学生为中心的努力、建立社区和促进学生合作来提供课程和共同课程的支持。与此相一致，该项目将实施无数的活动和机会，包括招收学生的暑期桥牌计划、实地考察、学生参加会议和科学会议、教师小组指导，以及纳入职业探索项目。个人支持机制将包括：让家长和监护人参与学生的学术旅程，以及由教职员工、同龄人和STEM专业人员提供个人指导。其他机制包括提供STEM研究经验，并主动建议学生报名参加现有的入门课程--让学生参与主动学习教学法。项目调查人员将利用全国性的场所传播研究结果和发现，同时针对其他缺乏强有力的战略性计划的小型文理学院，为低收入、高天赋的STEM学生提供支持。这个贝瑞学院项目的主要目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成情况。具体目标包括缩小STEM学生在未得到满足的经济需求方面的差距，减少--如有可能--坚持攻读STEM本科学位的其他挑战和障碍，并加强现有的支持基础设施，同时创建新的学生支持结构。此外，项目组打算利用现有的关于STEM干预措施的研究作为选择项目组成部分的理论基础。特别是，该项目的活动将基于以下结论：以学生为中心、社区建设和合作是有效管理对STEM学生的干预措施不可或缺的组成部分。严格的混合方法项目评估的洞察力和结果将产生新的知识，即支持干预或干预组合的哪些方面对学生的留住、参与、承诺、自我效能、归属感、学业表现和总体成功最有效。调查范围将解决文学方面的差距，并向寻求通过课程和联合课程干预相结合的方式支持学生的其他高等教育专业人员提供信息，特别是针对农村地区文科机构的学生，这些学生在参加STEM课程方面的代表性不足。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 Berry College in Georgia. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to twenty-one (21) high-achieving, low-income undergraduate STEM majors in biochemistry, biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. In addition to financial support, the project will provide curricular and co-curricular support through student centered efforts, building community, and fostering student collaboration. In line with this, the project will implement myriad activities and opportunities, including a summer bridge program for matriculating students, field trips, student participation at conferences and scientific meetings, small group faculty mentoring, and the inclusion of career-exploration ventures. Individual support mechanisms will include: engaging parents and guardians in their students' academic journeys, plus individual mentoring by faculty, staff, peers, and STEM professionals. Additional mechanisms involve providing the availability of STEM research experiences and proactively advising students for enrollment in extant introductory courses that engage-students in active learning pedagogies. Project investigators will disseminate outcomes and findings using national venues, while, at the same time, targeting other small, liberal-arts colleges lacking robust strategical programs to provide support to low-income, highly talented STEM students.The primary goal of this Berry College project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specific objectives include closing gaps for STEM students in unmet financial need and diminishing - eliminating when possible - other challenges and barriers to persistence to a STEM undergraduate degree, and enhancing existing support infrastructure, while creating new student support structures. Additionally, the project team intends to use extant research on STEM interventions as a theoretical grounding for choices of project components. In particular, the project will base its activities on findings that student-centeredness, community building, and collaboration are integral to effective administration of interventions for STEM students. Insights and outcomes from rigorous mixed methods project evaluation will generate new knowledge on which aspects of support interventions, or combination of interventions, are most effective for retention, engagement, commitment, self-efficacy, feeling of belonging, academic performance, and overall success of students. The lines of investigation will address gaps in the literature and inform other higher education professionals seeking to support students with a combination of curricular and co-curricular interventions, especially for students in liberal arts institutions in rural settings who are underrepresented in their participation in STEM courses of study. 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.