Supporting Transfer Student Success Using a Multidisciplinary Approach

该项目将通过支持爱达荷州立大学有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生的留校和毕业，来促进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。该项目为期6年，将为36-45名攻读生物学、微生物学、生物化学或化学(BMBC)学士学位的全日制转学学生提供奖学金。四组学者将获得长达两年半的奖学金支持。为了促进学位的完成和向STEM劳动力的过渡，奖学金支持将与其他支持相结合，以构建学者随着时间的推移真正参与多学科研究社区的结构，包括一个研究探索课程，以强调针对不同BMBC研究问题的多学科策略，一次本科生研究经验，教师和同行指导结构，以促进学者在BMBC研究社区的归属感，以及与毕业后劳动力和研究生项目安置的联系。该项目有可能通过为多学科团队培养科学家领导者来改进STEM劳动力，这些科学家领导者能够识别新兴研究领域，并为生物-化学界面上的问题设计创新的解决方案。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学位毕业率。该项目的具体目标是为转到爱达荷州立大学BMBC专业的学生提供奖学金，提高转学学生的保留率和按时毕业，并培养多学科团队的科学家领袖。转学学生面临着一个特殊的挑战，即在有限的时间内过渡到一个新的学术空间来创作与该空间相关的身份，这对学生在一门学科上的坚持不懈很重要。为了应对这一挑战，该项目将借鉴两个框架中的循证方法：科学实践社区和学科认同。项目活动将旨在支持转学学生通过参与BMBC科学实践社区来创作他们的多学科身份。该项目有可能促进对这些循证方法在BMBC专业的转学、留住和毕业以及过渡到STEM劳动力或研究生课程方面的有效性的理解。该项目将根据机构数据分析、学者调查、学者焦点小组访谈和教师调查进行评估。一名外部评估员将每年进行形成性评估，并在项目结束时进行总结性评估，以评估项目如何实现目标。这一项目的成果将通过在区域和国家会议、同行评议出版物、大学网站上的专门栏目、大学介绍和系研讨会上的介绍来传播。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 Idaho State University. Over its 6-year duration, this project will provide scholarships to 36-45 different full-time transfer students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry, or Chemistry (BMBC). Four cohorts of scholars will receive up to two and a half years of scholarship support. To facilitate degree completion and transition to the STEM workforce, scholarship support will be coupled with other supports to structure scholars’ authentic participation in a multidisciplinary research community over time, including a research exploration course to highlight multidisciplinary strategies to diverse BMBC research problems, an undergraduate research experience, faculty and peer mentoring structures to promote scholars’ sense of belonging in the BMBC research community, and connections to post-graduation workforce and graduate program placement. This project has the potential to improve the STEM workforce by preparing scientist leaders for multidisciplinary teams who can identify emerging research areas and devise innovative solutions to problems across the biology-chemistry interface. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The specific objectives of this project are to provide scholarships to students transferring to a BMBC major at Idaho State University, improve transfer student retention and on-time graduation, and train scientist leaders of multidisciplinary teams. Transfer students face the specific challenge of transitioning to a new academic space with limited time to author their identities in relation to that space, which is important for student persistence in a discipline. To address this challenge, this project will draw on evidence-based approaches from two frameworks: communities of science practice and disciplinary identity. The project activities will be designed to support transfer students to author their multidisciplinary identities through participation in the BMBC community of science practice. This project has the potential to advance understanding of the effectiveness of these evidence-based approaches in this context for transfer student retention and graduation in BMBC majors and transition to the STEM workforce or graduate programs. The project will be evaluated based on the analysis of institutional data, scholar surveys, scholar focus group interviews, and faculty surveys. An external evaluator will conduct yearly formative assessment and a summative assessment at the end of the project to assess how the project meets the objectives. Results of this project will be disseminated through presentations at regional and national conferences, peer-reviewed publications, a dedicated section on the university website, university presentations, and department seminars. 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 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.