The Two- to Four-year Institutional Pathway to STEM Degrees: An Empirical Study of Broadening Participation in STEM

考虑到社区大学的可及性和可负担性，社区大学吸引了大量少数族裔、低收入和第一代学生。尽管社区大学具有使STEM劳动力多样化的潜力，但很少有研究试图捕捉社区大学如何在STEM课程和学位课程中服务于代表性不足的学生。此外，对于是什么导致代表性不足的社区大学学生转到四年制院校并获得STEM学位，人们的理解有限。这个项目采用系统层面的方法来扩大参与度，问题是：不同的学生如何成功地通过STEM的两到四年的机构途径，以及哪些机构实践和资源支持他们在获得学士学位之前取得进步？它旨在通过对三对两年制和四年制院校进行描述性案例研究来回答这个问题，这些院校的转读率和学位完成率都超过了可比同行。简而言之，它使用成功的模型来理解是什么让不同的学生保持在STEM教育管道中。该项目在关注个人和机构之间互动的实践理论中，使用混合方法(例如访谈、调查、学术成绩单记录和人工制品，如课程目录)来：(A)调查支持STEM转学和坚持的机构实践；(B)跟踪社区大学STEM学生在四年制院校转学和继续学习的途径；以及(C)比较转学和非转学学生在STEM攻读学士学位的经历、身份发展和持久性。实际上，通过描述学生如何驾驭转学途径和制度体系以在STEM取得成功，并确定他们利用哪些资源取得成功，该项目可以为制定对课堂内外不同学生的需求敏感的做法和干预措施提供信息。在智力上，本研究旨在通过确定促进STEM转移的显性和隐性制度实践、资源和政策，为STEM本科教育中不同学生的转移开发可操作的理论和解释。该项目体现了教育和人力资源核心研究计划致力于STEM学习的基础研究，结合了来自广泛学科和背景的理论、技术和视角。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。

Given their accessibility and affordability, community colleges attract high numbers of minority, low-income, and first-generation students. Despite their potential to diversify the STEM workforce, few studies have sought to capture how community colleges serve underrepresented students in STEM courses and degree programs. Further, there is a limited understanding of what leads underrepresented community college students to transfer to and attain STEM degrees from four-year institutions. Taking a systems-level approach to broadening participation, this project asks, "How do diverse students successfully navigate two- to four-year institutional pathways in STEM and what are the institutional practices and resources that support their progress through to bachelor degree attainment?" It aims to answer this question by developing descriptive case studies of three pairs of two- and four-year institutions with transfer and degree completion rates that surpass their comparable peers. In short, it uses models of success to understand what keeps diverse students in the STEM educational pipeline.Grounded in practice theory, which focuses on interactions between individuals and institutions, the project uses mixed methods (e.g., interviews, surveys, academic transcript records and artifacts such as course catalogs) to: (a) Investigate the institutional practices that support transfer and persistence in STEM; (b) Track community college STEM students' pathways to transfer and follow through in a four-year institution; and (c) Compare the experiences, identity development and persistence of transfer and non-transfer students pursuing bachelor's degrees in STEM. Practically, by describing how students navigate transfer pathways and institutional systems to succeed in STEM and identifying the array of resources they draw on to succeed, the project can inform the development of practices and interventions that are sensitive to the needs of diverse students, both in and out of the classroom. Intellectually, the study aims to develop actionable theories and explanations for diverse students' transfer in STEM undergraduate education by identifying the explicit and implicit institutional practices, resources, and policies that facilitate STEM transfer. This project exemplifies the Education and Human Resources Core Research program's commitment to fundamental research on learning in STEM that combines theory, techniques, and perspectives from a wide range of disciplines and contexts.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.