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）表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为全国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。该项目为期6年，将为30名攻读生物医学工程、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。转学生将获得最多三年的奖学金。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与已被证明有效的支持活动联系起来，提高学生对工程和计算机科学的坚持，这些活动包括新的入学计划、指导、同伴辅导、专业发展和职业准备，以及参与设计和工程经验项目（DEEP）计划。在DEEP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的课外改进。通过战略性地解决影响高成就、低收入转校生的障碍，该项目有可能增加学生获得工程和计算机科学学位和职业成功的机会。这个项目有四个具体目标。首先是提高工程和计算机科学转校生一年的留校率和四年的毕业率。二是提高这些学生的归属感和职业认同感。第三是促进毕业生在获得学士学位后进入STEM劳动力或STEM研究生学位项目。第四，也是最后一个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。有许多因素影响转学生对STEM的坚持，包括经济需求、归属感、适应新机构和转学冲击。该项目将研究是否通过为转学生提供财政资源和经验，增加他们的归属感和增加他们的工程身份，同时消除部门和制度障碍，学生的成功将增加，学生将在毕业后进入STEM劳动力或进入研究生院。知识生成计划包括有效性研究和强有力的外部评估，旨在确定项目活动如何促进学生的成功和归属感，以及经济支持对入学率、留校率、工作时间和毕业等相关结果的影响。该项目的成果将通过期刊、会议演讲和论文、社交媒体和播客等形式向公众、STEM工作人员和STEM教育研究界的从业者和领导者提供。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。

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.