IGE: Advancing and Strengthening Science Identity through Systematic Training (ASSIST)

培养拉美裔、非裔美国人和女性等少数族裔研究生群体的科学领袖仍然是国家的优先事项。然而，这些群体面临的成功障碍往往不能通过传统的指导和科学专业化方法得到充分解决。为少数群体服务的机构独一无二地准备好培养不同的科学领袖，但它们也需要一种系统的、综合的、整个项目范围的方法，以培养和验证学生的科学家身份。这个授予德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校的国家科学基金会研究生教育创新(IGE)奖通过将整体指导与科学写作和公共科学传播方面的系统培训相结合来培养科学认同感。该计划将测试一种创新的、具有潜在变革性的科学多样化模式，该模式以社区支持、整体和系统的方式吸引环境科学和生态系的教职员工和研究生。该项目将利用一系列研究生课程、专业讲习班和基于社区的活动，寻求培养和验证未被充分代表的少数族裔学生的科学认同感。在全国范围内，这些干预措施可能非正式地存在，但它们很少(如果有的话)完全整合到一个连贯的STEM研究生项目中。随着科学家在全球化和媒体饱和的世界中驾驭跨学科的知识需求和文化挑战，培养科学专业的不同领导者至关重要。这一IGE项目的目标是通过获得知识库(能力)、进行科学实践的能力(表现)以及该领域重要其他人的认可(认可)，为未被充分代表的少数族裔研究生培养科学认同感。研究人员提出，培养这些认同成分并使其在科学学科和公共社区中可见，可以通过三种相互关联的干预措施来实现：整体指导、以写促学科学和公共科学交流。课堂内外的整体辅导将提供必要的基本框架，以解决代表人数不足的少数族裔学生面临的需求和挑战。此外，该项目假设，整体辅导将基于研究的科学写作和公共科学交流方面的系统培训的挑战转化为验证学生科学能力和领导技能的机会。该项目将使用混合方法评估办法，不仅分析每项干预措施，而且分析所有三项干预措施之间的关系。因此，它试图为整体指导和系统沟通培训在培养代表不足的少数族裔研究生培养科学风气方面的影响提供基于证据的验证。研究生教育创新(IGE)项目专注于研究生教育的研究。IGE的目标是试验、测试和验证研究生教育的创新方法，并产生将这些方法推广到更广泛社区所需的知识。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。

Developing science leaders from underrepresented minority graduate student groups such as Latinos, African Americans, and women remains a national priority. Yet the barriers to success these groups face are often not adequately addressed by traditional methods of mentoring and professionalization in science. Minority-serving institutions are uniquely poised to foster diverse science leaders, but they also require a systematic, integrated, program-wide approach geared toward nurturing and validating students' identities as scientists. This National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) award to the University of Texas San Antonio cultivates science identity by integrating holistic mentoring with systematic training in science writing and public science communication. This program will test an innovative and potentially transformative model for diversifying science that engages both faculty and graduate students from the department of Environmental Science and Ecology in a community-supported, holistic, and systematic approach. The project will utilize a series of graduate courses, professional workshops, and community-based activities that seek to foster and validate underrepresented minority students' science identity. Nationally, these interventions may exist informally, but they are rarely, if ever, fully integrated into a coherent graduate STEM program. Developing diverse leaders in science professions is crucial as scientists navigate interdisciplinary knowledge demands and cultural challenges in a globalized and media-saturated world. The goal of this IGE project is to cultivate a science identity for underrepresented minority graduate students through the acquisition of a knowledge base (competence), the ability to perform science practices (performance), and the acknowledgement by significant others in the field (recognition). The researchers propose that fostering these identity components and making them visible in scientific disciplines and public communities can be achieved through three interrelated interventions: holistic mentoring, writing-to-learn science, and public science communication. Holistic mentoring, both in and outside the classroom environment will provide the underlying framework necessary to address the needs and challenges faced by underrepresented minority students. In addition, this project hypothesizes that holistic mentoring transforms the challenges of systematic training in research-based science writing and public science communication into opportunities to validate students' scientific competence and leadership skills. The project will use a mixed-methods assessment approach to analyze not only each intervention but also on the relationships among all three interventions. Therefore, it seeks to provide an evidence-based validation of the impact of holistic mentoring and systematic communications training on cultivating a scientific ethos for underrepresented minority graduate students. The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.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.