Enhancing Pathways to a STEM Teaching Profession for Students from Minoritized Racial/Ethnic Groups

该项目旨在通过解决美国教师短缺和STEM教育工作者中缺乏种族/民族代表性的问题来服务于国家利益。这是一个为期三年的二级参与式学生学习(ESL)跟踪项目，将设计、测试和传播以研究为基础的干预措施，以增加STEM中学教师的数量，特别是那些自认为来自STEM学科中代表性不足的群体的教师，在本项目中称为来自小规模的种族/民族(MRE)群体。该项目将在佛罗里达国际大学进行，这是一家研究密集型的拉美裔服务机构。由于FIU超过70%的学生来自MRE群体，该项目有很高的潜力直接影响不同的学生参与者，并增加未来从事中等STEM教学专业的不同学生的潜力。让来自MRE群体的学生进入这些职业也应该会对美国第四大和第六大学区--迈阿密-戴德县公立学校和布罗沃德县公立学校的MRE学生产生影响，因为这些学区聘用的是FIU准备当教师的大部分学生。此外，该项目的发现有可能通过传播项目设计的教学资源和实施干预措施的研讨会，影响全国其他中学教师培训计划中的许多其他教育工作者和学生。本研究借鉴了STEM教学同一性、目标一致性和对策性的理论框架。该项目将学生的STEM教学认同发展作为一项关键成果，因为先前的研究发现，这种发展对参与度和坚持性至关重要。目标一致性将有助于理解STEM教学生涯与学生期望的价值观和目标匹配/不匹配的机制。对策性措施指导制定干预措施，挑战对STEM教师职业的刻板印象(这种误解阻碍了MRE STEM学生的坚持)，并以个人有意义的方式让MRE STEM学生参与进来，帮助他们发展STEM教师身份。该项目将分多个阶段进行，以确定在FIU大型中学教师培训计划中影响MRE学生STEM教学认同感和坚持性的关键因素。该项目的阶段将包括定性研究阶段、干预共同设计阶段(与MRE学生和教师一起)和定量研究测试阶段。定性研究将通过访谈两组参与者来确定影响MRE学生STEM教学认同感和坚持性的因素：完成招聘课程并坚持教学计划的MRE学生和未完成招聘课程并坚持教学计划的MRE学生。联合设计阶段将利用成果来开发和试点干预措施，以提高MRE学生对STEM教学的认同感和对项目的坚持性。定量阶段将使用准实验设计来测试干预措施对学生STEM教学认同感和坚持性的影响。每个阶段的成果和产品将传播给STEM教育研究人员/从业者和教师培训计划的广泛受众，以确保智力成果和实际应用的最大影响。NSF IUSE：EDU计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。通过参与的学生学习路径，该计划支持有前景的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。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 aims to serve the national interest by addressing the U.S. teacher shortage and lack of racial/ethnic representation among STEM educators. This is a three-year Level II Engaged Student Learning (ESL) Track project that will design, test and disseminate research-based interventions for increasing the numbers of secondary STEM teachers, particularly those who identify as being from groups underrepresented in the STEM disciplines, referred to in this project as being from minoritized racial/ethnic (MRE) groups. The project will be conducted at Florida International University, a research-intensive Hispanic-Serving Institution. As over 70% of FIU's students are from MRE groups, this project has high potential to directly impact a diverse population of student participants and increase the potential for future diverse students pursuing secondary STEM teaching professions. Having students from MRE groups enter these professions should also have an impact on MRE students in the 4th and 6th largest school districts, Miami-Dade County Public Schools and Broward County Public Schools, in the U.S., since these districts hire a majority of FIU’s students preparing to be teachers. Furthermore, the findings from this project have the potential to impact many additional educators and students within other secondary teacher preparation programs across the nation through the propagation of project-designed instructional resources and workshops for implementing the interventions. The proposed research draws on the theoretical frameworks of STEM teaching identity, goal congruity, and counternarratives. The project focuses on students’ STEM teaching identity development as a key outcome, since prior research has found that this development is critical for engagement and persistence. Goal congruity will help to understand a mechanism through which STEM teaching careers are matched/mismatched with students' desired values and goals. Counternarratives guide development of interventions that challenge stereotypic misperceptions of the STEM teaching profession (that impede MRE STEM students from persisting) and engage MRE STEM students in personally meaningful ways that help develop their STEM teaching identities. The project will be conducted in multiple phases to identify critical factors that influence MRE students’ STEM teaching identity and persistence in FIU’s large secondary teacher preparation program. The phases of the project will include a qualitative research phase, an intervention co-design phase (with MRE students and teachers), and a quantitative research testing phase. The qualitative study will identify factors that impact MRE students’ STEM teaching identity and persistence in the program by interviewing two groups of participants: MRE students who completed the recruitment course and persisted into the teaching program and those who did not. The co-design phase will leverage results to develop and pilot interventions to enhance MRE students’ STEM teaching identity and persistence in the program. The quantitative phase will test the impact of the interventions on students’ STEM teaching identity and persistence in the program using a quasi-experimental design. Findings and products from each phase will be disseminated to a wide audience of STEM education researchers/practitioners and teacher preparation programs in order to ensure maximal impact of the intellectual outcomes and practical applications. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning Track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.