Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) Proposal to Implement & Evaluate Models for Business Engagement to Increase Undergraduate STEM Student Persistence

由于商业部门在改善本科STEM教育方面一直是一个未得到充分利用的资源，而且几乎没有关于行业-高等教育合作伙伴关系的研究，商业-高等教育论坛(BHEF)试图解决这些差距。通过这一项目，BHEF将(1)整合STEM中关于持续性和学位获得的实施和研究工作，(2)支持和审查一系列商业-高等教育合作伙伴关系，特别关注将学生从两年制院校转到四年制院校的学习计划，以影响国家利益的领域。该项目专注于实施和审查旨在支持学生坚持不懈和获得学位的循证干预措施(例如，课程战略/活动和学生支持服务)。为此，BHEF成立了本科生STEM与行业干预(US2I)联盟，以开发、实施和审查基于证据的模式，让行业战略性、有效和可持续地参与课程战略/活动和学生支持服务，旨在提高STEM学生的坚持性和学位完成率。本次研讨涉及的关键问题D项目是：(1)不同的商业-高等教育伙伴关系模式在解决STEM的持续性和毕业问题方面是有效的？(2)确保可持续性和有效性的商业-高等教育伙伴关系的基本要素是什么？(3)基于设计的实施研究(DBIR)作为一种由行业-高等教育伙伴关系支持的干预研究和开发方法有多大用处？(4)移民分析技术在跟踪和评估学生从两年制院校转到四年制项目和获得STEM学位方面的优势和局限性是什么？定量和定性相结合的研究方法设计将收集关于学生学业进步、高等教育机构和系统流程、个人企业参与、行业联盟的效力以及企业和学术领导层的参与的数据。这项研究整合了调查研究、焦点小组、访谈和学生跟踪方法，以审查五项商业高等教育试点工作。分析将使用一套策略进行，包括多元回归、学生迁移分析、建模以及案例内和案例间分析。BHEF是由财富500强首席执行官和大学校长组成的全国性组织。在过去和目前活动的基础上，BHEF的五个合作伙伴和感兴趣的领域是：(1)纽约市立大学IBM：大规模数据分析和城市可持续发展；(2)迈阿密-戴德学院新时代能源：信息技术和网络安全；(3)马萨诸塞大学竞争伙伴关系：生命科学、工程学和计算机科学；(4)威斯康星大学密尔沃基水委员会：水科学；以及(5)圣路易斯华盛顿大学波音公司：工程。

Since the business sector has been a largely underutilized resource in improving undergraduate STEM education and there is little research on industry-higher education partnerships, the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) seeks to address these gaps. Through this project BHEF is (1) integrating implementation and research efforts on persistence and degree attainment in STEM and (2) supporting and examining a set of business-higher education partnerships with particular attention to the transfer of students from 2-year institutions to 4-year institutions in programs of study that impact areas of national interest. The project focuses on the implementation and examination of evidence-based interventions (e.g., curricular strategies/activities and student support services) designed to support student persistence and degree attainment.Towards these ends BHEF has formed the Undergraduate STEM Interventions with Industry (US2I) consortium to develop, implement, and examine evidence-based models of strategic, effective, and sustainable engagement of industries in curricular strategies/activities and student support services designed to increase STEM student persistence and degree completion. The key questions addressed in this R&D project are: (1) In what ways are the different models of business-higher education partnerships effective in addressing the problems of persistence and graduation in STEM? (2) What are the essential elements of business-higher education partnerships that ensure sustainability and effectiveness? (3) How useful is Designed-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) as a method for research and development of interventions supported by industry-higher education partnerships? (4) What are the strengths and limitations of migration analysis techniques in tracking and assessing the transfer of students from 2-year institutions to 4-year programs and degree attainment in STEM? A quantitative and qualitative mixed methods rsearch design will collect data on student academic progress, higher education institutional and systems processes, individual corporate engagement, efficacy of industry consortia, and involvement of corporate and academic leadership. The study integrates survey research, focus groups, interviews, and student tracking methodologies to examine five business-higher education pilot efforts. Analyses will be conducted using a suite of strategies that will include multiple regression, student migration analysis, modeling, and within-case and cross-case analyses.BHEF is a national organization of Fortune 500 CEOs and university presidents. Building on past and current activities, the five BHEF partnerships and domains of interests are:(1) City University of New York & IBM: Large-scale data analytics and urban sustainability; (2) Miami-Dade College & New Era Energy: Information technology and cybersecurity;(3) University of Massachusetts & the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership: Life science, engineering, and computer science;(4) University of Wisconsin & the Milwaukee Water Council: Water Science; and(5) Washington University in St. Louis & Boeing: Engineering.