Research-based Interventions for STEM Engagement

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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 Black Hills State University. Black Hills State University is a rural-serving institution with 36% of undergraduates eligible for Pell grants. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 24 unique students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology, chemistry, environmental physical science, mathematics, and physical science. Participants will be awarded scholarships as entering first-year students and receive four years of support. In addition to scholarships, students will be provided with Faculty Mentoring, Learning Communities (co-enrolled courses and co-location in residence halls), Embedded Tutoring/Peer Instruction, Undergraduate Research Experiences, and a new STEM Pathways Course focused on preparing for graduate school and STEM careers. BHSU faculty will attend a Mobile Summer Institute facilitated by the National Institute on Scientific Teaching to help them integrate active problem solving and high-impact practices into their instruction. Rooted in best practices, project activities will not only prepare students with relevant skills and experiences, but will also foster self-efficacy and STEM identity, which have been shown to increase the likelihood that students will persist, graduate, and enter the STEM workforce. Participants should benefit personally from the support offered by the project, and they will also contribute to the success and resilience of research teams they join later in life.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There are five specific objectives: 1) To increase the persistence and graduation rates among low-income students in STEM; 2) To increase low-income students’ performance in gateway courses in STEM; 3) To increase low-income students’ self-efficacy, STEM identity and sense of belonging in STEM; 4) To increase the number of low-income students who obtain employment in high-demand STEM careers or enroll in graduate school; 5) To evaluate interventions for efficacy, institutionalizing those that are successful and disseminating results to the wider STEM community. A STEM educational researcher will be part of the project leadership team and will work with the PI and external evaluator to determine impacts of the proposed interventions on the BHSU student population with an eye toward institutionalization. Interventions such as faculty mentoring and undergraduate research have been widely studied. The team anticipates these will meet with success, though formative and summative evaluation will still be conducted to understand nuances specific to BHSU. An examination of new interventions, such as the STEM Pathways course, will provide an opportunity to add to the body of knowledge about postsecondary STEM education. The team will share results broadly within the STEM education community through publications and presentations so that other small, rural, primarily undergraduate institutions can adapt and implement these interventions on their own campuses. 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.