Coaching and Retention for Engineering Students: Improving Low-Income Student Success in Engineering with Innovative Mentoring and Early Internship Experiences

该项目将为国家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，通过支持高成就、低收入、有经济需求的学生留校和毕业，该大学是一所位于南卡罗来纳州康威的公立综合文科院校。在为期6年的时间里，该项目将为11名正在攻读工程科学学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。一年级学生将获得最多四年的奖学金支持。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与有效的支持活动联系起来，包括夏季桥牌课程、指导和早期专业工程经验，来提高学生在工程学方面的坚持性和学位获得。在量身定做的一年级课程和导师指导的帮助下，这些学者将在暑假期间作为工程实习生在工业领域找到工作，成为大学二年级的新生。学者将从该项目行业合作伙伴的实习工程师那里获得现场指导，他们将提供并监督实习经验。该项目将调查在指导、评估和评价课程改进方面的改进做法，以及将业界反馈到高等教育课程的有效机制。由于卡罗莱纳海岸大学工程科学专业的学生人数较多，因此该项目有可能扩大学生在工程学领域的参与度，并了解指导和早期实习经验如何支持这些学生的留校和毕业。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。为此，项目组将追求三个具体目标。首先是通过一个为期两门课程的暑期桥牌项目，将数学新兵训练营和工程图学课程结合起来，通过一个有趣、注重技能、探索性的快速原型设计项目联系起来，以适应发展中的数学准备的工程学学生。第二，通过注重自我调节学习策略的辅导计划，提高学生的学业成功。第三，也是最后一点，是通过一次最终的、早期的工程实习经历，赋予完成学位所积累的自我效能感和激励效益。本项目将在社会认知职业理论的框架下，调查暑期桥牌课程、指导和早期实习经验对学生的自我效能感和工程方面的结果期望、兴趣和满意度的影响。本项目将调查这些项目干预措施中导致低收入工科学生高满意度和持之以恒完成学位的因素。将根据社会认知职业理论对该项目进行评估。将分析指导报告、实习求职信、工作场所能力评估、学生访谈和学习动机策略问卷，以了解对学生动机档案的益处，并检查对工程和机构数据的看法，以了解对工程项目进展和完成的影响。结果将通过开放科学框架的项目页面提供，所有相关项目材料将存储在那里并公开提供。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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 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 Coastal Carolina University, a public comprehensive liberal arts institution located in Conway, South Carolina. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 11 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Engineering Science. First-year students will receive up to four years of scholarship support. The project aims to increase student persistence and degree attainment in engineering by linking scholarships with effective supporting activities, including summer bridge courses, mentoring, and early professional engineering experiences. With the help of a tailored first-year curriculum and mentor coaching, the scholars will obtain employment in industry as engineering interns during their summer term as rising sophomores. Scholars will receive job-site mentoring from practicing engineers at the project’s industry partners who will provide and supervise internship experiences. The project will investigate improved practices in mentoring, assessment and evaluation of curriculum improvements, and effective mechanisms for industry feedback into higher education curricula. Because the Engineering Science program at Coastal Carolina University has a high population of underrepresented students, this project has the potential to broaden participation in engineering and to learn how mentoring and early internship experiences support retention and graduation of this student population.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Towards this end the project team will pursue three specific aims. First is to accommodate developmental math-ready engineering students using a two-course summer bridge program, integrating a math boot camp and an engineering graphics course, linked by a fun, skills-focused, exploratory rapid-prototyping design project. Second is to enhance student academic success through a program of mentoring focused on self-regulated learning strategies. Third, and finally, is to confer self-efficacy and motivational benefits accruing to degree completion, through a culminating, early engineering internship experience. This project will investigate the effects of summer bridge courses, mentoring, and early internship experiences on students’ self-efficacy and outcomes expectations, interest, and satisfaction in engineering, in the framework of Social Cognitive Career Theory. This project will investigate the factors in these project interventions that result in high satisfaction and persistence to degree completion for low-income students in engineering. Evaluation of the project will be conducted in light of Social Cognitive Career Theory. Mentoring reports, internship cover letters, workplace competency assessments, student interviews, and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaires will be analyzed for benefits to students' motivational profiles and views of engineering and institutional data will be examined for impacts on Engineering program progression and completion. Results will be made available by a project page with the Open Science Framework, where all relevant project materials will be stored and publicly available. 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.