Promoting Psychological Well-Being and Resilience to Increase Retention in High Achieving STEM Students

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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 in the Honors College of the University of Texas at San Antonio, a four-year Hispanic-Serving Institution. Over its six- year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 27 uniquefull-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics and Astronomy. First-year students will receive up to four years of scholarship support. This project will increase success in high achieving students by studying and targeting the effects that stress and imposter syndrome can have on retention. Students will participate in a supportive program which will help them recognize the impact stress is having in their lives, develop effective stress management and coping skills, identify and address their social support needs and prioritize self-care. Learning about the effectiveness of stress reduction in career achievement will be important inretaining high-quality students in STEM fields. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Stress and imposter syndrome are recognized as negative factors in life, but little is known about how great their impact can be on retention among high achieving college students, especially among students from underrepresented groups who may be subject to greater negative effects. This project will investigate whether a program to increase awareness of stress and training to reduce stress can significantly increase retention and graduation rates. This project has the potential to increase the number of highly talented STEM professionals through applying stress reductiontechniques as part of the scholastic program in STEM fields. The levels of psychological adaptation will be measured using well established interview instruments and student success will be measured by following GPA and graduation rates. Annual evaluation will be accomplished through an outside firm interviewing participants. Results of this project will be made available through conference presentations and journal publications. 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 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.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.