Building STEM Identity and Persistence Through STEM Pathway Mentorship

该项目将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，方法是支持有经济需求的优秀低收入学生留校并毕业于布林莫尔学院，这是一所四年制女子学院。在六年的时间里，这个项目将为45名正在攻读生物化学、生物、物理、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为期4年的奖学金。在第一学期前的暑假，这些学生将参加STEMLA研究员计划(STEM和布林莫尔的文科)，该计划旨在支持对STEM感兴趣的低收入学生。项目活动旨在通过STEM职业指导和更多的毕业机会来加强STEMLA的持久性。还将研究住宿STEM暑期项目的有效性，该项目侧重于将STEM基础技能应用于现实世界的问题，并通过分享经验和近距离同行指导来促进队列发展。旨在促进留用的其他项目活动将持续到毕业，包括暑期实习、跟踪机会、专业协会成员资格、支持参加会议、STEM课程支持和GRE准备。作为为参与者提供的STEM职业道路指导的一部分，该项目还将评估STEM指导的当前做法，并为教师如何有效地培养学生对学术界和行业的兴趣提供指南，帮助他们在STEM职业中建立一条通往成功未来的道路。此外，该项目将为实地和实验室研究经验建立导师指导方针，以满足低收入学生的独特需求。重要的是，这些指南将通过研讨会和出版物在当地和全国范围内传播，方案特点将在其他机构复制。对这些机会如何影响自我效能感、STEM认同感和对STEM的归属感的研究也将有助于对鼓励低收入学生坚持STEM的因素的总体理解。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女性在STEM工作中的参与度。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学位完成率。该项目将通过增加对低收入学生的STEM认同感、自我效能感和归属感的支持来实现这一目标。该项目将(1)测试为即将入学的STEMLA研究员提供的暑期住宿计划对他们选择STEM专业和职业的长期有效性；(2)评估STEM专业当前的辅导做法，并促进教师如何有效地培养学者在学术界内外的职业兴趣；(3)制定关于板凳科学包容性实践的导师指导方针，并创建一个教师培训模块，使教师能够设计和领导安全、包容性的现场体验，以及(4)扩大活动，以增加STEM专业的保留率，帮助研究员规划通往STEM职业的道路。社会认知职业理论(SCCT)框架考察了影响个人，包括妇女和来自低收入和代表性不足人口的人如何做出继续或停止STEM教育和职业追求的决定的心理社会因素。SCCT发现，影响STEM持续性的一个关键领域是STEM自我效能感，即个人对自己能够完成STEM任务的信念。这个项目的活动专门针对已知的提高自我效能的领域，并为学生提供在STEM中培养强烈的个人认同感的机会。这个项目将通过一项纵向研究来评估STEMLA的导师支持对STEM中持续存在的心理社会决定因素的影响。额外的评估将考察该项目对学业成绩和毕业率的影响。该项目的成果包括：学员的学业成绩与他们的非低收入同龄人持平，具有强烈的STEM认同感、自我效能感和归属感，以及在STEM毕业前的坚持不懈。最后，除了研究这些干预措施所产生的功效数据外，还将通过讲习班和出版物向K-16社区传播STEM职业指导、实验室指导和实地工作中包容性战略的指导原则。重要的是，这些成果将为其他学院和大学提供一个框架，以实现体制改革，努力增强妇女和低收入学生的归属感、成就感和坚持STEM职业生涯的能力。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 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.