Building STEM Identity and Persistence Through STEM Pathway Mentorship

通过 STEM 路径指导建立 STEM 认同和持久性

• 批准号: 2130370
• 负责人: Jennifer Skirkanich
• 金额: $ 149.37万
• 依托单位: Bryn Mawr College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-04-01 至 2028-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2130370&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Building; STEM; Identity; Persistence; Through

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 Bryn Mawr College, a 4-year women’s college. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund 4-year scholarships to 45 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry, biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer sciences, and geology. In the summer before their first semester, these students will join the STEMLA Fellows Program (STEM and the Liberal Arts at Bryn Mawr), a program that supports low-income students interested in STEM. The project activities aim to enhance persistence of STEMLA through STEM-career-focused mentoring and additional opportunities leading to graduation. The effectiveness of a residential STEM summer program that focuses on the application of foundational STEM skills to real-world problems and promotes cohort development through shared experiences and near-peer mentorship will also be studied. Additional project activities designed to promote retention will continue until graduation and include summer internships, shadowing opportunities, professional society membership, support for conference attendance, STEM curricular support and GRE preparation. As part of the STEM career pathway mentorship provided to participants, the project will also assess current practices in STEM mentorship and generate guides for effective ways faculty can cultivate students’ interests in academia and industry, helping them build a pathway to a successful future in a STEM occupation. Additionally, the project will build mentorship guidelines for field and laboratory research experiences that are responsive to the unique needs of low-income students. Importantly, these guides will be disseminated locally and nationally, via workshops and publications, and program features will be replicable at other institutions. The study of how these opportunities affect self-efficacy, STEM identity, and belonging in STEM will also contribute to the general understanding of factors that encourage persistence in STEM for low-income students. Because Bryn Mawr College is a women’s college, this project has the potential to broaden participation of low-income women in the STEM workforce.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project will accomplish this goal by increasing supports that foster STEM identity, self-efficacy, and belonging among low-income students. The project will (1) test the long-term effectiveness of a residential summer program for incoming STEMLA Fellows on their decisions to pursue STEM majors and careers; (2) assess current practices in the mentoring of STEM majors and promote effective ways faculty can cultivate Fellows’ career interests inside and outside academia, (3) develop mentorship guidelines on inclusive practices in bench science and create a faculty training module that will equip faculty to design and lead safe, inclusive field experiences, and (4) expand activities that increase retention in STEM majors and help Fellows ideate pathways to STEM careers. The Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) framework examines psychosocial factors that influence how individuals, including women and people from low-income and underrepresented populations, make decisions to pursue or discontinue STEM education and career pursuits. One key domain identified by SCCT that influences persistence in STEM is STEM self-efficacy belief, or an individual’s belief that they can accomplish STEM tasks. Activities in this project specifically target domains known to enhance self-efficacy and provide opportunities for students to cultivate a strong sense of personal identity in STEM. This project will evaluate the effects that STEMLA’s mentorship supports have on psychosocial determinants of persistence in STEM via a longitudinal study. Additional evaluation will examine the effects of the program on academic performance and graduation rate. Outcomes of this project include academic performance of Fellows that is on-par with their not-low-income peers, a strong sense of STEM identity, self-efficacy, and belonging, and persistence in STEM through graduation. Finally, the development of guiding principles in inclusive strategies in STEM career mentorship, lab mentorship and field work, in addition to the efficacy data generated by the study of these interventions, will be disseminated to the K-16 community via workshops, and publications. Importantly, these outputs will provide a framework for other colleges and universities to effect institutional transformation that seeks to empower women and low-income students to belong, thrive, and persist in STEM careers. 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 studentsThis 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.

该项目将通过支持布林莫尔学院（一所四年制女子学院）成绩优异、低收入、有经济需要的学生的保留和毕业，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。在六年的时间里，该项目将为45名正在攻读生物化学、生物学、物理学、化学、数学、计算机科学和地质学学士学位的全日制学生提供4年奖学金。在他们的第一学期之前的夏天，这些学生将加入STEMLA研究员计划（干和布林莫尔文科），一个支持对干感兴趣的低收入学生的计划。该项目活动旨在通过以STEM职业为重点的指导和额外的毕业机会来加强STEMLA的持续性。还将研究住宅STEM夏季计划的有效性，该计划侧重于将基础STEM技能应用于现实世界的问题，并通过分享经验和近同行指导促进队列发展。旨在促进保留的其他项目活动将持续到毕业，包括暑期实习，影子机会，专业协会会员资格，支持参加会议，STEM课程支持和GRE准备。作为向参与者提供的STEM职业途径导师的一部分，该项目还将评估STEM导师的现行做法，并为教师培养学生对学术界和工业界的兴趣的有效方法提供指导，帮助他们建立一条通往STEM职业成功未来的途径。此外，该项目还将为实地和实验室研究经验制定指导方针，以满足低收入学生的独特需求。重要的是，这些指南将通过讲习班和出版物在地方和全国范围内传播，方案的特点将在其他机构复制。这些机会如何影响自我效能感，STEM身份和归属感的研究也将有助于对鼓励低收入学生坚持STEM的因素的普遍理解。由于布林莫尔学院是一所女子学院，该项目有可能扩大低收入妇女在STEM劳动力中的参与。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。该项目将通过增加支持来实现这一目标，以促进低收入学生的STEM身份，自我效能和归属感。该项目将（1）测试即将到来的STEMLA研究员的住宅夏季计划对他们追求STEM专业和职业的决定的长期有效性;（2）评估STEM专业指导的现行做法，并促进教师在学术界内外培养研究员职业兴趣的有效方法，（3）制定关于长凳科学包容性实践的指导方针，并创建一个教师培训模块，使教师能够设计和领导安全，包容性的实地经验，以及（4）扩大活动，提高STEM专业的保留率，并帮助研究员构思STEM职业生涯的途径。社会认知职业理论（SCCT）框架研究了影响个人（包括妇女和低收入和代表性不足的人群）如何决定追求或停止STEM教育和职业追求的心理社会因素。SCCT确定的影响STEM持久性的一个关键领域是STEM自我效能信念，或者个人认为他们可以完成STEM任务的信念。该项目的活动专门针对已知可以提高自我效能的领域，并为学生提供机会，培养STEM中强烈的个人认同感。该项目将通过纵向研究评估STEMLA的导师支持对STEM持续性的心理社会决定因素的影响。额外的评估将检查该计划对学习成绩和毕业率的影响。该项目的成果包括研究员的学术表现与他们的非低收入同龄人相当，强烈的STEM身份感，自我效能感和归属感，以及在毕业时坚持STEM。最后，在STEM职业指导，实验室指导和实地工作的包容性战略的指导原则的发展，除了这些干预措施的研究产生的疗效数据，将通过研讨会和出版物传播到K-16社区。重要的是，这些产出将为其他学院和大学提供一个框架，以实现机构转型，旨在增强女性和低收入学生的权能，使其能够归属、茁壮成长并坚持从事STEM职业。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，并产生有关低收入学生的学术成功，保留，转移，毕业和学术/职业途径的知识。