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

该项目将通过支持莱斯大学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。莱斯大学是一所小型的、私立的、四年制高等教育机构，位于德克萨斯州休斯顿，一个拥有大约240万人口的城市，是美国最多元化的城市。在为期6年的时间里，该项目每年将为53名攻读理工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有学术天赋的低收入家庭学生从被大学录取到开始他们的主要核心课程，然后是整个本科课程的过渡。该项目将于夏季开始，将结合一个为期六周的沉浸式桥梁项目，该项目将涵盖学生在一年级数学、物理、化学和计算机科学课程中面临的最具挑战性的主题，并结合多种干预措施：在莱斯大学期间，学生将获得个性化的专业顾问指导，团队建设活动，以及其他旨在促进坚持和消除成功障碍的干预措施。此外，该项目还将赞助参加尖端研究、实习、暑期课程等暑期活动。这项S-STEM资助将支持在科学和工程领域有学术天赋的低收入学生，加强所有STEM领域的专业人才储备，同时揭示STEM身份形成和坚持完成STEM学位的关键事件的重要性，以及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有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。核心假设是，通过使用一系列精心策划和综合的干预措施，有可能消除导致STEM流失的障碍，从而提高持久性和学业成功。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内容知识和培养大学学习习惯和技能来减轻获得教育机会的差距；2)提供一个有意设计的队列体验，培养归属感，培养学生作为莱斯大学科学和工程社区成员的身份；3)在整个大学学习过程中指导学生建立社会资本，克服或消除坚持的障碍；4)为大二和大三学生提供暑期学术和学术机会。重大事件（被称为冲击）导致个别学生重新评估他们的教育安排，部分原因是冲击传递了关于身份和预期未来的信息。为了了解学生所经历的冲击类型，对其严重性的看法，以及他们是否因学生的社会经济地位而不同，将进行一系列定性访谈。此外，还将对入学时的学生身份（即STEM和身份认同）、前两年学习期间经历的冲击以及对学生成绩的评估进行定量研究。该项目将促进对学生正在经历的关键事件类型的理解，对这些关键事件严重性的看法，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不利影响方面的有效性。项目的成功将由形成性和总结性外部评价来评价，结果将通过同行审查的出版物和在学术会议上提出的论文来传播。该项目还将在每年夏天举办半天的研讨会，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 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.