Improving Transfer Academic, Career and Community Engagement for Student Success in Engineering and Computer Science

该项目将通过支持德克萨斯大学达拉斯分校(UT Dallas)优秀、低收入、有经济需求的学生的留校和毕业，为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做出贡献。在为期六年的时间里，该项目将为30名正在攻读生物医学工程、计算机工程、计算机科学、电气工程、机械工程和软件工程学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。转校生将获得最多三年的奖学金。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与被证明有效的支持活动联系起来，提高学生在工程和计算机科学方面的坚持性，这些活动包括新的迎新计划、指导、同行辅导、专业发展和职业准备，以及参与设计和工程体验项目(DEEP)计划。在深度项目中，学生将在教师教练的指导下完成团队项目，从而为学生提供宝贵的团队合作、项目管理和解决问题的技能。该项目还支持共同课程改进，旨在提高工程和计算机科学专业学生的专业技能和职业准备。通过战略性地解决影响高成就、低收入转学学生的障碍，该项目有可能增加学生获得工程和计算机科学学位的机会，并获得职业成功。该项目以四个具体目标为指导。一是提高工程和计算机专业转校生的一年保留率和四年毕业率。二是提高这些学生的归属感和职业认同感。第三，促进毕业生在获得学士学位后进入STEM劳动力或STEM研究生学位课程。第四，也是最后一点，是创建一个多变量预测模型，以了解经济援助对学生成绩的影响。影响转校生在STEM的持久度的因素很多，包括经济需要、归属感、适应新学校以及转学冲击。该项目将考察是否通过为转学学生提供财政资源和经验，在消除部门和机构障碍的同时，增加他们的归属感和工程认同感，是否会增加学生的成功，以及学生毕业后将进入STEM劳动力大军或进入研究生院。知识生成计划包括一项功效研究和稳健的外部评估，旨在确定计划活动如何有助于学生的成功和归属感，以及经济支持对与招生收益率、保留率、工作时间和毕业相关的结果的影响。该项目的成果将通过在被引用的期刊、会议报告和论文、社交媒体和播客等形式发表，向公众、STEM工作人员和领导人以及STEM教育研究界提供。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 the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas). Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to thirty unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and software engineering. Transfer students will receive up to three-year scholarships. The project aims are to increase student persistence in engineering and computer science by linking scholarships with supporting activities proven to be effective, including a new orientation program, mentoring, peer tutoring, professional development and career preparation, and participation in the Design and Engineering Experiences Projects (DEEP) program. In the DEEP program, students will complete team projects under the guidance of a faculty coach, thereby providing students with valuable teamwork, project management, and problem-solving skills. The project also supports co-curricular improvements aimed at improving professional skills and career preparation of engineering and computer science students. By strategically addressing barriers that impact high-achieving, low-income transfer students, this project has the potential to increase students’ access to engineering and computer science degrees and career success. Four specific goals guide this project. First is to increase one-year retention and four-year graduation rates of engineering and computer science transfer students. Second is to improve the sense of belonging and professional identity of these students. Third is to facilitate entrance of graduates into the STEM workforce or STEM graduate degree program after their bachelor’s degree. Fourth, and finally is to create a multivariate predictive model to understand the impacts of financial aid on student outcomes. There are many factors that affect transfer student persistence in STEM including financial need, sense of belonging, navigating their new institution, and transfer shock. This project will examine whether by providing transfer students financial resources and experiences that increase their belonging and increase their engineering identities while departmental and institutional barriers are removed, student success will increase and students will enter the STEM workforce or matriculate into graduate school after graduation. The plan for knowledge generation includes an efficacy study and robust external evaluation designed to establish how the program activities contribute to students’ success and sense of belonging, and the impacts of financial supports on outcomes related to enrollment yield, retention, hours worked, and graduation. Results of this project will be made available to the general public, practitioners and leaders in the STEM workforce and the STEM education research community through for example publications in refereed journals, conference presentations and papers, social media, and podcasts. 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.