CAREER Exploring the Role of STEM Faculty Beliefs & Classroom Culture on Undergraduate Minoritized Students Experiences Achievement and Persistence in STEM

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The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization, and to build a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. This CAREER project seeks to generate new knowledge about the approaches and strategies of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and how they successfully cultivate growth mindset classroom cultures, as experienced by their students, to create more equitable learning environments for minoritized students. Negative stereotypes about who can and cannot succeed in STEM adversely affect progress toward the U.S. goal of developing a high quality, diverse STEM workforce. STEM interest and persistence amongst minoritized students (e.g., Black, Latinx, Native American), in particular, are alarmingly lower when students encounter negative stereotypes and inequitable educational environments. Higher education faculty have the power and autonomy to directly influence STEM learning environments and bring about the changes necessary to support students’ participation and persistence in STEM fields, but little is known about how professors’ beliefs are communicated and how they can cultivate a growth mindset classroom culture. Furthermore, there is a need for exploration of how Black students experience mindsets in STEM classrooms where they are not the racial minority. Growth mindset is belief in the malleability of intelligence and abilities. This CAREER inquiry uses a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach to examine the relationships between STEM faculty beliefs, classroom culture, and the experiences, achievement, and persistence of Black students at HBCUs. The project studies HBCU professors of STEM introductory courses and their students to investigate beliefs and pedagogical practices, perceptions of classroom culture, and STEM engagement, persistence, and achievement. Classroom observations will enable investigation of the presence of mindset messages and climate. This work integrates research and education to generate new knowledge and explanations about how to cultivate growth mindset classroom cultures and the associated impact on minoritized students in STEM. Findings will inform the development of a workshop for STEM faculty, the creation and implementation of a graduate colloquium to support and prepare future STEM faculty and the development of course modules, case studies and presentations for broad impact. This project is funded by the Historically Black Colleges and Universities – Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP), which is committed to enhancing the quality of undergraduate STEM education and research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in order to broaden participation in the nation's STEM workforce and in part by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).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.