Expanding Undergraduate Research Participation in General Education Courses to Improve STEM Persistence and Graduation Rates

在改进的本科生STEM教育：拉美裔服务机构(HSI)计划的支持下，这个Track 1项目旨在建设能力并扩大对本科生研究的早期参与。它将通过实施和测试一系列以课程为基础的本科研究经验来实现这一点，旨在使更多的本科生能够参与STEM研究。本科生的研究与提高学生的毅力、提高毕业率、增加STEM内容的掌握和增强科学认同感有关。本科生研究经历的这些积极影响对于STEM中通常代表不足的人群的学生来说更加明显。在许多院校，对本科生研究经验的需求超过了可获得的机会。因此，这种体验可能会偏向那些进入大学时拥有进行研究所需的知识和技能的学生。对于还没有做好研究准备的学生，包括资源不足的高中的学生，参与可能会受到限制。该项目将涉及多个STEM学科，并在整个机构范围内进行变革：近100名教师将把研究经验融入85多节通识教育课程，在整个项目过程中将为5000多名学生提供服务。实施和研究这项研究灌输的信息将增加对如何：a)改善STEM普通教育课程的教学和学习成果；b)改善学生参与研究的途径；c)利用本科研究来更具战略性地提高STEM专业中代表性较低的学生的毅力和学术成就；以及d)提供一种低成本但仍然有效的方法，向更多的学生介绍科学研究的价值和关键概念。预计越来越多的本科生研究将加强入门课程的教学，增加学生研究人员的多样性，并提高STEM领域的大学毕业率。该项目将通过比较普通教育和门户STEM课程中嵌入的完整的本科生研究经验和递增的本科生研究经验的结果，解决关于本科生教育知识状况的不足。该项目团队将使用人口统计和学生教育记录来衡量不同水平的研究参与对不同学生群体的影响。此外，研究小组将开发和完善一种新的衡量标准，以衡量学生从低级课程到高级课程的过渡。将解决的关键研究问题包括：与完全的研究投入相比，额外的本科生研究投入水平如何影响学习、自我认知和行为？在多大程度上可以利用这些入门水平来扩大本科生研究经验的数量，并创建更具包容性的全面研究途径？哪些学生群体最有可能从不同水平的研究参与以及每种教学机制和活动中受益？为拉美裔服务的机构如何才能更准确地衡量从低级到高级的转变，以确定最需要干预的学生？HSI计划旨在加强本科生STEM教育和HSI的能力建设。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。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。

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program, this Track 1 project aims to build capacity for and broaden early participation in undergraduate research. It will do so by implementing and testing a sequence of course-based undergraduate research experiences designed to enable more undergraduates to participate in STEM research. Undergraduate research has been linked to increased student persistence, improved graduation rates, increased STEM content mastery, and enhanced science identity. These positive effects of undergraduate research experiences are even more pronounced for students from populations typically underrepresented in STEM. In many institutions, demand for undergraduate research experiences exceeds available opportunities. As a result, the experiences may be biased toward students who enter college with the knowledge and skills needed to do research. Participation can be limited for students who are not yet “research-ready,” including students from under-resourced high schools. This project will involve multiple STEM disciplines and engage in institution-wide changes: nearly 100 instructors will embed research experiences into more than 85 sections of general education courses that will serve more than 5,000 students over the course of the project. Information from implementing and studying this research infusion will increase understanding about how to: a) improve instruction and learning outcomes in STEM general education courses; b) improve student pathways to research engagement; c) leverage undergraduate research to more strategically improve persistence and academic attainment for students underrepresented in STEM professions; and d) provide a lower-cost, yet still effective, method for introducing more students to the value and key concepts of scientific research. It is expected that increasing access to undergraduate research will strengthen instruction in introductory courses, increase the diversity of student researchers, and result in improved college graduation rates in STEM fields. This project will address deficiencies in the state of knowledge about undergraduate student education by comparing outcomes of complete undergraduate research experiences to incremental undergraduate research experiences embedded in general education and portal STEM courses. The project team will use demographic and student educational records to measure the impact of multiple levels of research engagement on different student populations. In addition, the research team will develop and refine a new metric to measure student transitions from lower to upper division courses. Key research questions that will be addressed include: How do additional levels of undergraduate research engagement impact learning, self-perceptions, and behavior, in comparison to full research engagement? To what extent can these introductory levels be leveraged to expand the number of undergraduate research experiences, and to create more inclusive pathways to full research? Which student populations are most likely to benefit from the different levels of research engagement, and from each of the instructional mechanisms and activities? How can Hispanic-Serving Institutions more accurately measure lower division to upper division transition in order to identify students in most need of intervention? The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.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.