S-STEM: Addressing Disparities in STEM Educational Access and Outcomes among Low-Income Students

该项目将有助于国家需要受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员，通过支持高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业，证明在莱斯大学的经济需要。莱斯大学是一所小型的私立四年制高等教育机构，位于德克萨斯州休斯顿，这是一个拥有约240万人口的城市，是美国最多元化的城市。在6年的时间里，该项目每年将为53名攻读科学和工程学科学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。这个项目将促进一群学术天赋低收入家庭的学生从他们被大学录取到他们的主要核心课程的开始，然后在他们的本科课程的其余部分的过渡。该项目将于夏季开始，并将结合联合收割机为期六周的沉浸式桥梁计划，该计划将涵盖学生在第一年的数学，物理，化学和计算机科学课程中面临的最具挑战性的主题，并采取多种干预措施：个性化的专业顾问在整个学生在赖斯的时间内进行辅导，群体建设活动以及旨在推动持久性和消除成功障碍的其他干预措施。此外，该项目还将赞助夏季活动，如参加最先进的研究，实习和夏季课程的机会。这个S-STEM补助金将支持在科学和工程方面有学术天赋的低收入学生，加强所有STEM领域的专业人士的渠道，同时阐明关键事件在形成STEM身份和坚持STEM学位完成方面的重要性，以及该项目在满足学生需求方面的有效性。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就的本科生与证明财政需要完成STEM学位。 核心假设是，通过使用一系列精心策划和综合的干预措施，将有可能消除导致STEM减员的障碍，从而促进持久性和学术成功。总体目标将通过追求以下目标来实现：1）通过帮助学生获得核心STEM内容知识并培养大学准备的学习习惯和技能，减少获得教育机会的差距; 2）提供有意设计的队列体验，培养学生的归属感并培养学生作为莱斯科学和工程社区成员的身份; 3）在整个大学学习期间指导和指导学生建立社会资本，并导航或消除坚持的障碍;以及，4）为大二和大三学生提供夏季学术和学术机会。关键事件（称为冲击）导致个别学生重新评估他们的教育安排，部分原因是冲击发出有关身份和预期未来的信息。为了了解学生所经历的电击类型，对其严重程度的看法，以及它们是否因学生的社会经济地位而异，将进行一系列定性访谈。此外，定量研究的学生身份在入学（即，STEM和身份地位），在他们的头两年的研究经历的冲击，并对学生的成果进行评估。该项目将推进学生正在经历的关键事件的类型的理解，这些关键事件的严重性的看法，这些看法是否因学生身份而异，以及该项目在减轻这些事件的不利影响的有效性。将通过形成性和总结性外部评价来评估该项目的成功与否，并将通过同行审查的出版物和在学术会议上提交的论文传播评价结果。该项目还将每年夏天举办为期半天的研讨会，与德克萨斯州的其他大学和社区学院分享有效的策略。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得STEM领域的学位。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术成功，保留，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 Rice University. Rice University is a small, private, four-year institution of higher education located in Houston, Texas, a city of approximately 2.4 million people that stands as the most diverse city in the United States. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 53 unique, full-time students every year who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering disciplines. This project will facilitate the transition of a group of academically talent low-income students from the time they are admitted to college to the start of their major core courses—and then throughout the remainder of their undergraduate programs. The project will begin in the summer and will combine a six-week, immersive bridge program that will cover the most challenging topics students will face in first-year mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computer science courses with numerous interventions: individualized professional advisors’ coaching throughout the students’ time at Rice, cohort-building activities, and other interventions designed to fuel persistence and remove barriers for success. Moreover, the project will sponsor summer activities such as opportunities to participate in state-of-the-art research, internships, and summer courses. This S-STEM grant will support academically talented low-income students in science and engineering, strengthening the pipeline of professionals across all STEM fields, while shedding light on the significance of critical events in the formation of STEM identity and persistence to a degree completion in STEM, as well as the effectiveness of the project in addressing student needs. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The central hypothesis is that by using a series of carefully planned and integrated interventions, it will be possible to remove the barriers that lead to attrition in STEM and, thereby, advance persistence and academic success. The overall goal will be accomplished by pursuing the following objectives: 1) mitigate disparities in access to educational opportunities by helping students acquire core STEM content knowledge and develop college-ready study habits and skills; 2) provide an intentionally designed cohort experience that fosters belongingness and cultivates students’ identity as members of the Rice science and engineering communities; 3) coach and mentor students throughout their college studies to build social capital and navigate or remove barriers to persistence; and, 4) provide summer academic and scholarly opportunities for sophomore and junior students. Critical events (called shocks) cause individual students to re-evaluate their educational arrangements, in part because shocks send messages about identity and expected futures. To understand the types of shocks experienced by students, the perceptions of their severity, and whether they differ by student socioeconomic status, a series of qualitative interviews will be performed. In addition, quantitative studies of student identity upon matriculation (i.e., STEM and status identity), shocks experienced during their first two years of study, and an assessment of student outcomes will be performed. The project will advance understanding of the types of critical events that students are experiencing, perceptions of the severity of those critical events, whether these perceptions differ by student status, and the effectiveness of the project in mitigating the adverse effects of these events. The success of the project will be assessed by formative and summative external evaluation, and the results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and papers presented at academic conferences. The project will also host a half-day workshop every summer to share effective strategies with other universities and community colleges across Texas. 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.