Proposal Writing Workshop for Psychology Education Research and Development

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This project aims to serve the national interest by providing targeted workshop training to increase understanding of the process of crafting proposals to the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, as well as other programs in the Education and Human Resources (EHR) directorate of NSF. The workshop will target psychology departments from institutions of higher education (IHE) in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic portions of the United States, with a focus on institutions that have historically served students from populations currently underrepresented in STEM fields of study. Additionally, the psychology departments and IHE to be targeted for workshop attendance will be those who are either new to NSF funding or have had limited NSF funding in the past, as the goal of this project is to increase the number and quality of IUSE submissions coming from psychology departments who have yet to be active in seeking such support. The workshop will provide information, mentoring, and activities designed to aid potential principal investigators on their path to IUSE proposal submission. One of NSF targeted goals is to access the “Missing Millions” of individuals who have potential for STEM education and workforce engagement, but have not, as of yet, been actively engaged in that educational or career path. This project plans on addressing those needs by creating a peer mentoring environment of psychology faculty from the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic portions of the United States that will develop through workshop preparation, delivery, and follow-up. The targeted IHE will be those that serve a high percentage of students from populations who are underrepresented in their participation in STEM. These institutions are likely to be new or relatively new to NSF funding. The workshop will be designed to build a cohort of potential PIs with shared experiences who are already conducting research that is aligned with the goals of IUSE, but have, to date, not made use of such funding to advance their research. Through the delivery of information, along with scaffolding the proposal writing experience for attendees, it is expected that cross institutional collaborations as well as individual or departmental submissions to the IUSE program will increase. The process will be evaluated and the findings of how to increase submissions will be disseminated both to NSF as well as to and through other psychology associations (e.g., the American Psychological Association.) The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.