Pathways to Success in Graduate Engineering: Understanding and Supporting the Critical Transition from Undergraduate to Graduate Engineering Studies.

该项目将有助于满足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。它将通过支持德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校的优秀低收入学生毕业来做到这一点。埃尔帕索是一所研究型大学，拉美裔学生占多数。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为20名正在攻读快速通道工程学士至硕士学位的学生提供三年奖学金。专业包括电气工程、计算机工程、工业工程、制造工程、系统工程、冶金工程和土木工程。这个项目将创建一个学生支持系统，它结合了财政支持、课程改进和指导，以及研究技能和职业发展机会。该提案的一个值得注意的优点是，它包括了让学生的家庭成员和同龄人参与的活动。该项目将进行一项研究，以检验学生支持系统的成功，该系统在学生的教育道路上提供适当的支持。如果成功，这一支持系统不仅有可能提高该大学工程学研究生的成功率，而且还有可能提高其他应用该系统的机构的成功率。因此，该项目可以帮助满足国家对训练有素的STEM劳动力的关键需求，特别是对更多工程师的需求。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。该项目的重点是支持和理解本科教育和研究生教育之间的关键过渡，这是一个尚未得到很好研究的领域。该项目旨在提供一种循证模式，以支持这一过渡，并可在其他机构实施，从而增加学生为STEM职业生涯做好准备。该项目的目标是：创建一个创新的、多方面的学生支持生态系统；实施一个导师结构，将学生培养为研究人员；并分析学生对研究生教育的追求、坚持和成功。目前还没有概念模型可用来指导对教育干预在学生发展中随时间变化的动态作用的理解。因此，该项目开发了一个新颖的三阶段学生发展轨迹模型，该模型将为其研究奠定基础。研究方法包括多变量分析，控制初始学生属性和学生暴露在教育环境中的差异的影响。研究问题将调查干预措施对学生短期、中期和长期职业生涯结果的影响，从而增进工程教育的基本知识，以及教育干预在改善STEM职业生涯结果方面的作用的应用知识。通过这项研究将产生的改进的知识预计将产生一个学生成功的模式，并将在全国范围内传播。因此，它有助于增加进入STEM职业生涯的学生数量，特别是第一代和/或来自STEM中代表性不足的低收入学生。将使用与项目目标挂钩的成果和产出来评价项目。成果的传播将通过出版物和在科学或专业会议上的演讲来进行，包括那些专注于工程教育、研究生研究和社会学的会议。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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优势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. It will do so by supporting the graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at the University of Texas at El Paso, a research university with a majority Hispanic student population. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide three-year scholarships to 20 students who are pursuing Fast-Track Bachelor-to-Master's degrees in Engineering. Majors include Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Systems Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, and Civil Engineering. This project will create a student support system that combines financial support, curriculum improvements, and mentoring, as well as research skill and professional development opportunities. A noted strength of the proposal is its inclusion of activities to engage students’ family members and peers. The project will conduct a research study to examine the success of the student support system, which provides supports at appropriate points in students' educational path. If successful, this support system has the potential to not only increase success rates of engineering graduate students at the University, but also to improve success at other institutions that apply it. As a result, this project can help meet the critical national need for a well-trained STEM workforce, particularly the need for more engineers.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project focuses on supporting and understanding the critical transition between undergraduate and graduate education, an area that has not been well studied. The project intends to provide an evidence-based model to support this transition that can be implemented at other institutions, thus increasing the successful preparation of students for STEM careers. The project objectives are to: create an innovative, multi-faceted student support ecosystem; implement a mentoring structure to train students as researchers; and analyze the students' pursuit of, persistence in, and success in graduate education. No conceptual model is currently available to orient understanding of the dynamic role of educational interventions in student development through time. Therefore, the project has developed a novel three-stage Student Developmental Trajectory model that will frame its research. Research methodology includes multivariate analyses that control for the effects of differences in initial student attributes and in student exposure to educational environments. The research questions will investigate the impact of interventions on students' short-term, mid-term, and long-term career outcomes, thus advancing basic knowledge of engineering education, as well as applied knowledge of the role of educational interventions in improving STEM career outcomes. The improved knowledge that will emerge through this research is expected to produce a model for student success that will be disseminated nationally. As a result, it can help to increase the number of students who enter successful STEM careers, particularly low-income students who are first-generation and/or from populations underrepresented in STEM. Outcomes and outputs linked to project objectives will be used to evaluate the project. Dissemination of results will occur via publications and presentations at scientific or professional conferences, including those focused on engineering education, graduate studies, and sociology. 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.