HSI Implementation and Evaluation Project: Scaling and Extending Exploratory Reading Groups to Strengthen Computing Pathways

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With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2: IEP aims to significantly increase the number and diversity of engineering students at UC Santa Cruz, an R1 Hispanic Serving Institution and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution, and Cabrillo College, a two-year Hispanic Serving Institution. At large universities, opportunities for undergraduate research are ad hoc and limited in number, while at two-year institutions access to these experiences is even more limited or non-existent. Undergraduate research experiences has proved to provide many benefits to participating students, including increased likelihood of pursuing graduate study, improved retention in STEM majors, clarification of career goals, and increased knowledge and technical skills; these benefits are often strongest for underrepresented students. Exploratory Reading Groups (ERGs) where students participate in low time-commitment half-quarter-long reading groups on topics centered on an active research area of a faculty member are socially relevant and thus a motivating factor in increasing student interest in STEM undergraduate research. The project will scale this program to serve 50% of engineering undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz, cumulatively hundreds of transfer-intending students at Cabrillo. This project will understand the impact of large-scale Exploratory Reading Group participation on student success in engineering, on entry into undergraduate research experiences, and on supporting transfer pathways.Specific goals for this project include growing engineering Exploratory Reading Groups (ERGs) at UCSC, performing a summative large-scale and longitudinal evaluation of their impact, and supporting transfer pathways through establishing ERGs at Cabrillo. The project will develop a refined and updated playbook for running ERGs at scale, tailoring them to better serve underrepresented students, and adapting them for two-year institutions and transfer pathways. An associated web platform and supporting scripts for running ERGs will be publicly available. To evaluate effectiveness, the project will perform a large-scale longitudinal analysis of the impact of ERGs on student success in engineering, on entry into undergraduate research experiences, and on transfer pathways, as well as an equity analysis on how experiences and outcomes differ for underrepresented populations. The project will also perform an analysis of barriers to faculty adoption of ERGs and on student participation in ERGs, especially for underrepresented student populations. In addition to scholarly publications at computing and engineering education venues, the project will produce an extended ERG playbook for growth and community college collaborations, perform broad audience dissemination, e.g. via the IUSE Disruptor Blog, or a SIGCSE workshop, and produce open-source materials and digital tools for running ERGs. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve 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.