Analysis of Variation in Student Success in Engineering Degrees among Several Institutions

随着美国的院校努力扩大STEM领域的参与度和多样性，让少数族裔（URM）学生参与其中，有些大学在向少数族裔学生授予STEM学位方面比其他大学更成功。通过公立和赠地大学协会（APLU）和美国工程教育学会（ASEE）的合作，这个项目的目的是探索三所大学的成功制度实践。调查人员将特别关注各院校在授予URM学生工程学位方面所采取的基于公平的政策和做法。这项工作是2018年美国国家科学基金会工程教育现状报告EEC-1734899的成果，特别是其第一份题为《工程学位授予多样性的快照》的报告。该项目确定了大型研究机构、管理学院和所有其他机构在授予URM学生工程学位数量方面的显著差异。根据之前的分析，调查人员还将关注各个校园的战略差异，并将寻找独特程序、政策和实践的相似性和多样性。最后，研究人员将分析采用这些程序、政策和实践的时间，以对照那些利用ASEE学位数据库（按URM学生分类）的机构完成学位的趋势。本项目将探讨以下关键问题：“我们能否确定具体的以公平为重点的政策和做法，以解释各院校在授予URM学生的本科工程学位方面的差异？”该方法将基于公立和赠地大学协会（APLU）和美国工程教育学会（ASEE）之间潜在的富有成效的伙伴关系。简而言之，目标院校将从APLU对其先前的工程学位完成研究的分析中选择。然后，对于这些机构，我们将根据ASEE汇编的著名机构政策和实践，检查我们所知道的关于教育改进的情况。最后，我们将根据ASEE纵向学位数据库（按URM学生分类），分析这些机构在实践中采用这些变化的时间，以及完成学位的趋势。这项工作的结果可能对广泛的STEM教育项目有所帮助。也许最值得注意的是，CAHSI（西班牙裔服务机构计算联盟）、First2 Network和Seas INCLUDES联盟都在努力提高URM学生在STEM本科专业的成功率。进一步确定制度变革是学生成功的更有力的杠杆，可能有助于这些和其他教育改进工作。更广泛的影响可以提供具体政策和实践之间的潜在关系，以提高URM学生随着时间的推移获得学位的教育成功率-虽然本研究侧重于工程学位，但实践成功的方法和理解可以延续到其他学科。最后，更广泛的影响可能会在APLU及其整体机构成员和ASEE及其基于学科的学院成员之间建立潜在的长期合作伙伴关系，以改善URG学生的教育。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

As the nation’s institutions struggle to broaden participation and diversity across STEM fields to underrepresented minority (URM) students, there are certain universities who have a track record of being more successful in granting STEM degrees to URG students than others. The purpose of this project through the collaboration of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the American Society on Engineering Education – ASEE will be to explore the successful institutional practices of 3 institutions. The investigators will specifically focus on the equity-based policies and practices that the institutions have in place as it pertains to engineering degrees awarded to URM students. The work is an outgrowth of the 2018 Status Report on Engineering Education NSF award EEC-1734899 and particularly its first report entitled A Snapshot of Diversity in Degrees Conferred in Engineering. That project identified significant variations across large research institutions, MSIs and all other institutions in their success in the number of engineering degrees they awarded to URM students. As a result of the previous analysis, the investigators will also focus on the strategic variations across the campuses and will be looking to identify the similarities and diversifications of unique procedures, policies and practices. Finally, the investigators would analyze the timing of the adoption of these procedures, policies, and practices against the trend in degree completion for those institutions drawing on the ASEE database of degrees, disaggregated by URM students. This project will examine the key question of, “Can we identify specific equity focused policies and practices to explain variation among institutions in undergraduate engineering degrees awarded to URM students?” The approach will be based on a potentially productive partnership between the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the American Society on Engineering Education – ASEE. In short, the target institutions would be selected from the APLU analysis of its prior study on engineering degree completion. Then for those institutions, we would examine what we know about improvements in education – drawing on the ASEE compilation of notable institutional policies and practices. Finally, we would analyze the timing of the adoption of these changes in practice against the trend in degree completion for those institutions drawing on the ASEE longitudinal data base of degrees, disaggregated by URM students. Results of this work might be helpful to a broad swath of STEM education projects. Perhaps most notably, the CAHSI (Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions), First2 Network and Seas INCLUDES Alliances are all attempting to enhance the success of URM students in undergraduate STEM majors. Further identification of the institutional changes that are more powerful levers for student success might be helpful to these and other education improvement efforts. The broader impacts could provide potential relationships among specific policies and practices to improve education success with increases in degrees gained by URM students over time – while this study focuses on engineering degrees, the approach and understanding of success of practices could carry over to other disciplines. Lastly, the broader impact could create a potential long-term partnership for educational improvement for URG students between APLU, with its overall institutional members, and ASEE with its discipline-based college members.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.