Assessing Peer Mentorship as a Scalable Intervention to Promote the Academic Success and Retention of Diverse Undergraduate Biology Majors

该项目旨在通过提高本科生物学学生的学术成功和保留在主要服务于国家利益。在美国的大多数大学，大约50%的本科生物学学生在学习的前两年离开专业。为了解决这一问题，大多数机构推出了一些一年级学生支持计划。然而，当学生的留存率处于最低水平时，生物学学生在第二年的学习中面临相当大的挑战和明显较少的支持。该项目旨在通过在两个研究密集型的少数民族服务机构实施和描述近同行导师计划来提高二年级生物专业学生的成功。上师生物学同行导师谁自己克服了共同的障碍，学生的成功将提供学术见解和支持量身定制他们的第二年生物学专业的学员。重要的是，这个项目的目的是阐明的理论机制，同侪指导促进学员的学术成功。提高对同伴指导如何运作的理解，可以使这一战略在国家一级的各种中学后学术环境中得到广泛采用和成功实施。反过来，这应该增加STEM学位毕业生的数量，质量和多样性。为了评估同伴指导的影响，本项目将采用严格的随机对照研究设计，以评估同伴指导如何影响学员（1）短期和长期的学习成绩和保留以及（2）归属感，学习自我效能和学习习惯的复杂性。此外，该项目将包括一个重点，确定和调查有效的近同行指导的做法，以评估这些行为如何影响学员的结果。为了评估同伴指导是否是一个可扩展的干预在不同的大学，该项目将实施同伴指导计划在两个大的，公共的西班牙裔服务机构，其中两个生物学课程在第二年的水平共享类似的学术挑战。导师结构将包括学员：导师组6：1的比例，一个研讨会课程，学员参加指导讨论与学生成功相关的主题，每周导师签到。为了描述这些导师结构并实现上述目标，将从各种来源收集数据。每个项目地点的机构研究小组将为学员提供学业成绩，主要声明和人口统计数据，而项目生成的调查工具将捕获学员的非认知影响和与这些结果相关的导师行为。结合起来，这些数据将进一步了解同伴指导如何促进学生在挑战STEM专业的学术成功。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。 该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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 aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate biology student academic success and retention in the major. At most universities in the United States, roughly 50% of undergraduate biology students leave the major within the first two years of their studies. To address this concern, most institutions put in place a number of first-year student support programs. There are, however, considerable challenges and significantly fewer supports for biology students in their second year of study when the student retention rate is at its lowest. This project seeks to improve the success of second year biology majors by implementing and characterizing near-peer mentorship programs at two research-intensive, minority serving institutions. Upper division biology peer mentors who have themselves overcome common barriers to student success will provide academic insights and supports tailored to their second-year biology major mentees. Importantly, this project is intended to shed light on the theoretical mechanisms by which peer mentorship promotes mentee academic success. Advancing understanding of how peer mentorship works may enable wide adoption and successful implementation of this strategy at a national level across various post-secondary academic settings. In turn, this should increase the number, quality, and diversity of students graduating with STEM degrees. To assess the impact of peer mentorship, this project will employ a rigorous randomized control research design that will enable the assessment of how peer mentorship influences mentee (1) short-term and longer-term academic performance and retention and (2) sense of belonging, academic self-efficacy, and academic habit complexity. Additionally, the project will include a focus on identifying and investigating effective near-peer mentorship practices to assess how these behaviors impact mentee outcomes. To assess whether peer mentorship is a scalable intervention at diverse universities, this project will implement peer mentorship programs at two large, public Hispanic-serving institutions where both biology programs share similar academic challenges at the second year level. The mentorship structure will include mentee:mentor cohorts in 6:1 ratios, a seminar course where mentees participate in guided discussions on topics relevant to student success, and weekly mentor check-ins. To characterize these mentorship structures and achieve the previously mentioned goals, data will be collected from a variety of sources. Institutional Research groups at each project site will provide academic grades, major declaration, and demographic data for mentees, while project-generated survey instruments will capture mentee noncognitive impacts and mentor behaviors linked with these outcomes. Combined, these data will advance understanding of how peer mentoring promotes student academic success in challenging STEM majors. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.