Becoming a Scientist: A Study of Identity Balance and the Persistence of Hispanic Undergraduate Students in Engineering and Biological Sciences

促进多样化和技术能力强的STEM劳动力对于促进科学进步和我们国家的健康、繁荣和福利至关重要。虽然在过去十年中，获得STEM学士学位的美国公民和永久居民西班牙裔学生的数量迅速增加，但参加STEM项目的西班牙裔学生离开大学或转专业的比例高于白人同龄人。这种损失可能与刻板印象、缺乏支持以及西班牙裔学生在大学中所面临的排斥空间有关。研究表明，发展和保持强烈的STEM身份是在STEM学科中坚持和成功的重要预测因素。在社会刻板印象的背景下，了解西班牙裔学生身份的复杂性，以及这种身份的平衡，可能会改善STEM本科生的学术、研究和实习项目，这将促进他们坚持完成学士学位。项目团队正在探索一个框架，该框架考虑了隐含和明确持有的身份，以了解学生如何在一段时间内实现和保持强大的STEM身份，以及哪些经历促进或阻碍了这一过程。研究人员假设，隐性关联和身份之间的平衡的强度和性质会影响学生明确持有的STEM身份，并且由于对工程和生物科学学位课程的白人和西班牙裔本科生的普遍刻板印象，这些过程在质量上有所不同。目前的调查还在研究白人和西班牙裔本科生在做出关键的职业和学术决定时的身份轨迹。这项研究的结果正在推进对历史上代表性不足的少数民族的STEM身份平衡的认识。研究结果告诉大学管理人员和教育工作者，他们的机构如何对本科生研究、实习和学术项目进行基于证据的修改，这些项目会影响少数族裔STEM学生的保留和学位完成。这项研究得到了美国国家科学基金会EHR核心研究（ECR）项目的支持。ECR项目强调在该领域产生基础知识的基础STEM教育研究。投资在至关重要、广泛和持久的关键领域：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大STEM参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。该项目支持积累有力的证据，为理解、构建理论进行解释提供信息，并提出干预和创新建议，以应对STEM兴趣、教育、学习和参与方面的持续挑战。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。

Advancing a diverse and technically competent STEM workforce is critical for contributing to the progress of science and to the health, prosperity and welfare of our nation. While the number of Hispanic students, who are U.S. citizens and permanent residents, earning STEM bachelor's degrees has increased rapidly during the past decade, Hispanic students enrolled in STEM programs are leaving college or switching majors at higher rates than their White peers. This loss may be related to the stereotypes, lack of support, and the exclusionary spaces that Hispanic students are exposed to in college. Research suggests that developing and maintaining a strong STEM identity is an important predictor of persistence and success in STEM disciplines. Understanding the complexity of Hispanic students' identity, and the balance of that identity, in the context of social stereotypes, could lead to improved STEM undergraduate academic, research and internship programs, which would advance persistence to bachelor's degree completion. The project team is exploring a framework that considers both implicitly and explicitly held identities for understanding how students achieve and maintain a strong STEM identity across time, and what experiences facilitate or hinder this process. The researchers hypothesize that the strength and nature of the balance between implicitly held associations and identities influence student's explicitly held STEM identity, and that these processes are qualitatively different due to prevailing stereotypes for White and Hispanic undergraduate students, enrolled in Engineering and Biological Sciences degree programs. The current investigation is also examining the identity trajectories of White and Hispanic undergraduate students as they make critical career and academic decisions. Results from the research are advancing knowledge about balanced STEM identity for historically underrepresented minorities. Findings inform university administrators and educators about how their institutions might make evidence-based modifications to undergraduate research, internship and academic programs that impact minority STEM student retention and persistence to degree completion. This research is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent challenges in STEM interest, education, learning and participation.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.