Developing Undergraduate Students' Science Identity through Scholarships, Teams, and Research

该项目将通过支持有经济需要的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，促进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。它将支持德克萨斯女子大学的学生，这是一所为西班牙裔服务的机构，也是美国最大的主要为妇女服务的大学。在五年的时间里，该项目将为35名攻读生物化学、生物学、化学、计算机科学、信息学或数学学士学位的学生提供长达三年的奖学金支持。项目活动将以支持成功为基础，而不是以关注成功障碍的赤字模型为基础。除了提供奖学金外，该项目还将让学者参与多维指导模式，推动课外活动，以支持学生的成功。该项目还将产生新的知识，不仅旨在提高当地的保留率和STEM毕业率，而且还将告知高等教育界。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就的本科生与证明财政需要完成STEM学位。该项目旨在通过三种策略增加STEM参与，保留和毕业：1。每年向15名学生提供S-STEM奖学金; 2.为学者提供课外支持，包括生活学习社区，指导和研究经验;以及3.审查与参与者的科学身份和成功有关的因素，并传播成果，以扩大项目活动对机构社区和其他机构的影响。帮助学生发展科学身份是项目的共同课程支持策略的目标，因此，研究问题集中在这些策略如何影响学生的科学身份。研究问题包括每个项目活动，包括奖学金和研究经验，如何加强学生的科学身份。将采用混合方法，定性和定量研究方法，并分析数据，以确定不同学生群体成功的潜在差异。这些发现有助于为高等教育机构提供帮助和留住学生的战略，包括那些传统上无法获得STEM课程或为STEM课程做好充分准备的群体。该项目的长期预期成果包括提高STEM项目的学生保留率、缩短毕业时间、提高毕业率以及增加就业安置或进入研究生院的人数。该项目的成果将在当地和专业会议上发表，并提交同行评审期刊发表。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得STEM领域的学位。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学术成功，保留，转移，毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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 students with demonstrated financial need. It will support students at Texas Woman's University, a Hispanic-serving institution the largest university primarily for women in the United States. Over its five-year duration, this project will provide up to three years of scholarship support to 35 students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Informatics, or Math. Rather than basing project activities on a deficit model focused on barriers to success, activities will be based on supports to success. In addition to providing Scholarships, the project will engage Scholars in a multidimensional mentoring model that drives co-curricular activities to support student success. The project will also generate new knowledge, intended to not only increase retention and STEM graduation rates locally, but also to inform the higher education community. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion by low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project seeks to increase STEM engagement, retention, and graduation through three strategies: 1. provide S-STEM scholarships to 15 students annually; 2. provide Scholars with co-curricular supports including living-learning communities, mentoring, and research experiences; and 3. examine factors related to participant science identity and success, and disseminate results to expand the impact of the project activities to institutional communities and beyond. Helping students develop a science identity is a goal of the projects' co-curricular support strategies and, consequently, the research questions focus on how each of these strategies impact students' science identity. Research questions include how each project activity, including scholarships and research experiences, strengthen students' science identity. A mixed-methods, qualitative and quantitative research approach will be used, and data analyzed to identify potential differences in the success of different groups of students. These findings can contribute to equipping institutions of higher education with strategies for assisting and retaining students, including those from groups that have traditionally not had access to or sufficient preparation for STEM programs. The long-term expected outcomes of the project include increased student retention in STEM programs, reduced time to graduation, increased graduation rates, and increased job placement or entry into graduate school. The results from this project will be presented locally and at professional conferences, and submitted for publication in peer reviewed journals. 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.