Supporting the Academic Success of Undergraduate STEM Students through Scholarships and STEM Identity Development

该项目将通过支持里约热内卢Hondo学院表现出经济需求的优秀低收入本科生的保留和毕业，为国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献。里约热内卢Hondo学院位于南加州，是一所公立的两年制西班牙裔教育机构。超过55%的学生属于低收入的第一代大学生。该项目为期五年，将为45名攻读生物、化学、环境科学、工程、数学和物理等专业转学副学士学位的学生提供两年奖学金。该项目旨在通过提供财政支持，同时努力分析和支持低收入STEM学生的成功，提高学生在STEM领域的坚持度。该项目将包括“作为一名科学家茁壮成长”课程，以及诸如指导/辅导、本科生研究经验和课程改进等支持活动。这种多方面的方法有望帮助学者获得STEM身份，从而在他们的大学和职业生涯中发挥作用。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。目前关于科学认同发展的理论提供了一个框架来研究科学认同和文化认同如何影响学生的能动性，以及什么样的大学结构支持这种发展。不幸的是，大多数与STEM身份发展相关的测量工具都是由四年制大学为四年制学位课程的学生创建的。考虑到越来越多未被充分代表的少数族裔学生在社区大学开始接受高等教育，迫切需要更好地了解两年制院校的STEM身份发展。该项目将通过使用文化敏感的STEM身份工具来衡量和解决两年制大学STEM学生面临的障碍和机会，从而帮助解决这一需求。研究结果将用于评估干预措施的有效性，并在学生完成两年制大学的课程、毕业和/或转学到四年制大学的STEM领域时，促进对文化和STEM身份影响的理解。该项目强调两年制大学的设置，其结果将增加STEM教育的论述，不仅要改变学生的行为，还要改变他们就读的机构的文化。该项目将评价项目每个组成部分的效力，并将在教育和社会科学期刊上发表所产生的知识的结果，并在区域和国家会议上传播研究结果，以扩大项目的影响。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need at Rio Hondo College. Located in Southern California, Rio Hondo College is a public, two-year, Hispanic-serving institution. More than 55% of its students are classified as low-income, first-generation college students. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund two-year scholarships to 45 students who are pursuing associate degrees for transfer in Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by providing financial support, combined with efforts to analyze and support the success of low-income STEM students. The project will include a "Thrive as a Scientist" course, along with support activities such as mentoring/tutoring, undergraduate research experiences, and curricular improvements. This multi-faceted approach is expected to help Scholars acquire a STEM identity that can carry them throughout their college and professional careers. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Current theory about the development of science identity offers a framework to investigate how science identity and cultural identity affect student agency, and what college structures support this development. Unfortunately, most measurement tools related to development of STEM identity were created by four-year institutions for students enrolled in four-year degree programs. Considering the increasing number of underrepresented minority students who begin their post-secondary education at a community college, a pressing need exists to better understand STEM identity development at two-year institutions. This project will help to address this need by using a culturally-sensitive STEM identity instrument to measure and address the barriers and opportunities facing STEM students at two-year colleges. The results will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and to advance understanding of the effects of cultural and STEM identity as students complete their courses of study at two-year institutions, and graduate and/or transfer to four-year institutions in STEM fields. With an emphasis on the two-year college setting, the results of this project will add to the discourse in STEM education with a renewed focus on not just changing student behaviors but also chancing the culture of institutions in which they are enrolled. The project will evaluate the effectiveness of each of the project's components and will publish results of the knowledge generated in education and social science journals, and disseminate findings at regional and national meetings to broaden the impact of the project. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.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.