RAPID: Graduate student experiences of support and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic

快速：了解研究生在COVID-19期间的支持和压力体验COVID-19大流行迅速颠覆了研究生的学习、研究和教学。精心设计的职业道路往往需要学生和他们的机构进行大量投资，由于新的挑战而面临风险。这些挑战包括进入教室和实验室的机会有限，当前和计划中的合作中断，压力和焦虑增加，以及儿童和其他家庭成员的新责任。这种影响对于具有边缘化身份的研究生（例如，有色人种学生，低收入家庭学生），他们往往已经在与现有的不平等作斗争。更糟糕的是，这些困难面临着研究生群体，多项研究表明他们已经面临心理健康危机。如果研究生在这一关键时期得不到支持，美国研究生水平培训的有效性和包容性可能会大幅下降，从而对美国的科学知识基础、社会和更广泛的美国经济产生长期负面影响。这个国家科学基金会快速反应研究（RAPID）奖给蒙大拿州州立大学，爱荷华州州立大学和得克萨斯州A M-商务将支持研究：专为帮助研究生在COVID-19大流行期间感到支持的中学后机构政策和实践，以及这些努力对研究生教育和职业决策的影响。&这项研究将有助于研究生院管理人员和教师的研究基础，了解如何在危机期间立即帮助研究生，以及什么策略可能是最有效的支持研究生在STEM领域，更广泛地说，当他们做出学位和职业相关的决定时，社会从危机中走出来。该项目是一项多机构、两阶段的解释性混合方法研究，研究对象是研究生在COVID-19大流行期间的经历、他们对机构支持的看法，以及这种支持对教育和职业决策的近期影响。研究团队将利用现有的高等教育机构网络，征求15所机构的参与，并在2020年春末夏初向3万名研究生发放问卷。这项研究是由创伤和灾难应对奖学金。该调查将包括经过验证的创伤量表，用于测量创伤后应激障碍样症状，焦虑和抑郁，将由包括创伤和心理健康专家在内的跨学科团队设计。然后，团队成员将使用半结构化定性访谈协议进行虚拟焦点小组，深入探讨学生对COVID-19疫情的经历和反应，以及这些经历与他们的身份、坚持和职业抱负的关系。研究人员将整合定量和定性数据，以进一步解释，解释和提供新的见解，以了解研究生在COVID-19大流行期间的经历。分析将特别注意与种族，阶级，性别和其他社会人口因素有关的学生经历。在每个阶段都将做出多种努力，以招募和支持代表性不足的少数STEM研究生参与研究。研究结果将通过同行评审奖学金，白色文件和研讨会传播，为研究生院领导和STEM教师提供基于研究的指导方针，指导他们如何在危机时期支持最广泛的研究生。这个快速反应研究（RAPID）奖是由研究生教育部/教育和人力资源局的研究生教育创新（IGE）计划使用冠状病毒援助，救济和经济安全（CARES）法案的资金颁发的。该奖项反映了NSF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。

RAPID: Understanding Graduate Student Experiences of Support and Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic COVID-19 has rapidly upended graduate students’ learning, research, and teaching. Carefully crafted career paths that often require substantial investments by both students and their institutions have been placed at risk due to newly imposed challenges. These challenges include limited access to classrooms and labs, disruption to current and planned collaborations, increased stress and anxiety, and new responsibilities for children and other family members. This impact is particularly acute for graduate students with marginalized identities (e.g., students of color, low-income students) who are often already struggling with existing inequalities. To compound matters, these hardships confront a graduate student population that multiple studies suggest was already facing a mental health crisis. If graduate students do not feel supported during this critical period, the U.S. may suffer a dramatic decline in the effectiveness and inclusiveness of its graduate-level training, resulting in long-term negative impacts on the U.S. scientific knowledge base, society, and the broader U.S. economy. This National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research (RAPID) award to Montana State University, Iowa State University, and Texas A&M-Commerce will support research on: postsecondary institutional policies and practices that are designed to help graduate students feel supported during the COVID-19 pandemic and the influence of these efforts on graduate student educational and career decision-making. The study will contribute to a research base for graduate school administrators and faculty about how to immediately help graduate students during a crisis, as well as what strategies might be most effective for supporting graduate students in STEM fields and more broadly as they make degree and career-related decisions as society emerges from the crisis. The project is a multi-institution, two-phase explanatory mixed method study of graduate students’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, their perceptions of institutional support, and near-term impact of this support on educational and career decision-making. The research team will leverage existing institutional higher education networks to solicit the participation of 15 institutions and disseminate questionnaires to 30,000 graduate students in late spring/early summer 2020. The research is informed by scholarship on trauma and disaster response. The survey, which will include validated trauma scales that measure post-traumatic stress disorder-like symptoms, anxiety, and depression, will be designed by an interdisciplinary team that includes trauma and mental health experts. Team members will then conduct virtual focus groups using semi-structured qualitative interview protocols to explore students’ experiences and reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic in-depth, and how these experiences relate to their identities, persistence, and career aspirations. Researchers will integrate both quantitative and qualitative data to further interpret, explain, and provide new insights to understanding graduate student experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyses will pay particular attention to student experiences related to race, class, gender, and other socio-demographic factors. Multiple efforts will be made at each stage to recruit and support participation of underrepresented minority STEM graduate students in the study. Results of the research will be disseminated through peer reviewed scholarship, a white paper, and workshops providing graduate college leadership and STEM faculty with research-based guidelines on how to support the broadest range of their graduate students during a time of crisis. This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) award is made by the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program in the Division of Graduate Education/Directorate of Education and Human Resources using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.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.