HSI Implementation & Evaluation Project: The North Star Program: A study of mentoring online, non-traditonal, underrepresented STEM students

在改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构（HSI计划）的支持下，这个第二轨道项目旨在开发一个在线近同伴指导计划，提供学术和社会支持，以提高学生的持久性和完成度。基于先前的文献和芝加哥职业心理学院（TCSPP）的机构研究数据，我们假设在线本科生、非传统的、未被充分代表的少数民族和第一代大学生进入他们的项目时自我效能水平低，在学术环境中缺乏归属感。从历史上看，这些学生的大学坚持度和完成度都低于他们在校园里的同龄人。我们试图研究与具有相似人口特征和生活经历的同龄人研究生的联系是否会打破他们的孤立感，增加他们的归属感和自我效能感。自2019冠状病毒病大流行以来，对在线教育的需求和追求，以及随之而来的对学生坚持和完成学业的挑战，都有了显著增长，但专门针对在线学生和虚拟辅导的研究却很少。北极星项目将为学生提供一对一的直接支持，这些支持来自与他们有着共同身份并且完成了类似学术课程的同龄人。具体而言，该项目将聘请心理学硕士学位的学生作为导师，为心理学学士学位的学生提供社会支持，以提高他们的持久性和完成度。预期的结果包括提高学生在学位课程中的归属感和自我效能感，从而提高坚持、完成和进入研究生学习的比率。通过分析前/后自我效能感和归属感测量、导师和学员反馈、学业表现和持久性数据，该项目将进一步了解辅导非传统年龄、代表性不足的在线学生如何影响他们的持久性、完成度和对心理学研究生学习的追求。这项研究将提供新的见解，探讨如何在不断增长的、代表性不足的、非传统年龄的学生群体中建立归属感和自我效能感，以及这种干预在校园学生和完全在线学生身上的效果差异。有待探讨的研究问题是：近同伴指导是否能增强在线学生在学位课程中的归属感和自我效能感？近同伴指导是否能提高在线学生的持久性？近同伴指导项目是否能提高学位完成率和研究生学习的追求？在这一领域以前的工作主要集中在传统年龄的学生在住宿校园物理科学。该项目有可能使心理学研究多样化，从代表性不足和非传统群体中提供共享的生活经验视角，以推动该领域的发展。他们越来越多的坚持、完成和进入研究生学习将增加心理科学研究和其他STEM领域的多样化视角。HSI计划旨在加强HSI的本科STEM教育和能力建设。卫生信息系统方案支持的项目也将产生关于实现这些目标的新知识。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。

With the support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2 project aims to develop an online near-peer mentoring program to provide academic and social support to increase student persistence and completion. Based on previous literature and The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP) institutional research data, it is posited that undergraduates who are online, non-traditional, underrepresented minorities, and first-generation college students enter their program with low levels of self-efficacy, lacking a sense of belonging in an academic setting. Historically, these students have lower college persistence and completion levels than their on-campus, traditional-aged peers. We seek to study whether a connection to near-peer graduate students with similar demographic traits and lived experiences will break their isolation and increase their sense of belonging and self-efficacy. While the demand for and pursuit of online education, along with subsequent challenges to student persistence and completion, has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a dearth of research specifically focused on online students and virtual mentoring. The North Star Project will provide students with directed one-on-one support from their near peers who share intersectional identities with them and have completed similar academic programs. Specifically, the project will engage students enrolled in the Master of Psychology degree as mentors to provide social support to increase Bachelor of Psychology student persistence and completion. Expected outcomes include increased student sense of belonging and self-efficacy in their degree program, resulting in increased rates of persistence, completion, and entry to graduate study.Through analysis of pre/post-self-efficacy and sense of belonging measurements, mentor and mentee feedback, academic performance, and persistence data, the project will advance knowledge of how mentoring of non-traditional-aged, underrepresented online students affects their persistence, completion, and pursuit of graduate study in psychology. This research will provide new insights into methods of building a sense of belonging and self-efficacy in this growing population of underrepresented, non-traditional-aged students and the differences in the effectiveness of this intervention on campus-based versus fully online students. The research questions to be explored are: does near-peer mentoring enhance an online student’s sense of belonging and self-efficacy in a degree program? Does near-peer mentoring increase online student fall-to-fall persistence? And does a near-peer mentoring program increase degree completion and pursuit of graduate study? Previous work in this area has focused on traditional-aged students in physical sciences on residential campuses. This project has the potential to diversify psychological research, providing a shared, lived experience perspective from underrepresented and non-traditional groups to advance the field. Their increased persistence, completion, and entry into graduate study will increase diverse perspectives in psychological scientific research and other STEM fields. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HIS Program will also generate new knowledge on achieving these aims.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.