Building Capacity: Advancing Student Success in Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science

改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构计划（HSI计划）旨在加强本科STEM教育并建立HSI的能力。HSI计划支持的项目也将产生关于如何实现这些目标的新知识。加州州立大学富勒顿分校的这个项目将通过提高计算机科学和工程专业的留校率和毕业率，降低低级别STEM课程的高重复率，来推进HSI项目的目标。许多学生遇到了独特的挑战，他们的文化或经济背景，如竞争的经济责任和家庭承诺。这些挑战会降低学生在大学里实现其潜在表现水平的能力。该项目旨在产生关于社会支持机制在帮助学生克服这些挑战中的作用的新知识。为此，该项目旨在整合社会文化实践，建立牢固的师生关系，并让学生参与智力刺激，个人相关的学习经验，以及低部门瓶颈STEM课程的实践研究经验。通过提高保留率和毕业率，加州州立大学富勒顿分校等hsi有可能帮助填补关键空白，扩大美国STEM劳动力的参与。该项目旨在开发情境化、可复制的学习模块；改进课程设置和教学方法；提供教师发展和支持；建立有效的家庭和社区参与；培养有吸引力的师生互动。这些学习模块可以帮助其他高等教育机构（包括hsi）的研究人员和教育工作者采用和加强学生在低年级STEM课程中的学习。让学生的家庭参与STEM丰富活动预计将在社区中建立持久的意识，并有可能激励后代的学生追求STEM职业。将收集定量和定性研究数据，并将包括学生成绩以及可能影响这些结果的个人、社会、认知和环境因素。预计学生将从该项目中受益，包括提高士气、自我效能、毅力和职业准备技能，这些对维持美国经济全球竞争力的下一代科学家和工程师至关重要。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。

The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge about how to achieve these aims. This project at California State University-Fullerton will advance the aims of the HSI Program by increasing retention and graduation rates in computer science and engineering and reducing high repetition rates in lower-division STEM courses. Many students encounter challenges unique to their cultural or economic background, such as competing financial responsibilities and family commitments. These challenges can decrease students' capacity to achieve their potential level of performance in college. This project seeks to generate new knowledge about the role of social support mechanisms in helping students overcome these challenges. To this end, the project aims to integrate sociocultural practices, establish strong student-faculty rapport, and involve students in intellectually stimulating, personally relevant learning experiences, and hands-on research experiences in lower-division bottleneck STEM courses. By increasing retention and graduation rates, HSIs such as California State University-Fullerton have a potential to help fill critical gaps and broaden participation in the US STEM workforce.This project aims to develop contextualized, replicable learning modules; improve curricula and pedagogical approaches; provide faculty development and support; establish effective family and community engagement; and cultivate engaging faculty-student interactions. The learning modules may help researchers and educators in other higher education institutions, including HSIs, to adopt and enhance student learning in lower-division STEM courses. Involving students' families in STEM enrichment activities is predicted to create an enduring awareness in the community, with the potential to motivate future generations of students to pursue STEM careers. Both quantitative and qualitative research data will be collected and will include student outcomes and personal, social, cognitive, and contextual factors that may influence these outcomes. Anticipated student benefits from the project include improved morale, self-efficacy, persistence, and improvement in career-readiness skills, which are essential for the next-generation of scientists and engineers who will sustain the global competitiveness of the US economy.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.