Broadening Participation in STEM Careers through High-Impact Practices

该项目将有助于国家需要受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员，通过支持高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业，证明底特律慈善大学，一所私立城市大学的经济需要。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为20名攻读工程、数学或计算机科学四年制学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。 学者将进入两个队列，并获得长达四年的年度奖学金支持。该项目旨在通过与现有校园资源和外部工业合作伙伴合作，实施可持续的高影响力实践，提高学者的保留率，毕业率和就业率。学者将参与促进个人，职业和学术发展的活动，包括参与队列建设活动，团体咨询，多个行业实习以及同行，教师和行业指导。该项目有可能扩大STEM劳动力的参与，并解决区域对熟练劳动力的需求。该项目的结果可以告知其他高等教育机构如何实施经过研究验证的学生保留实践，以支持资源有限环境中的多样化学生。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就本科生在STEM领域的学位完成率。该项目旨在：（1）在个人和专业上支持学生攻读STEM学位;（2）提高学生对STEM社区的专业认同感和归属感;以及（3）提高学生对STEM职业的兴趣。对成功的STEM本科课程的研究已经确定了高影响力的实践，包括队列建设，住宅社区，导师和研究经验。然而，知识是有限的，关于如何复制这种高影响力的做法在小机构与有限的资源，服务于异质学生群体。该项目将评估这样一种假设，即这些机构能够以有效和可持续的方式模仿这些经研究证明的做法。具体而言，该项目旨在探索行业实习，团体咨询经验和非住宅队列建设对学生的STEM身份和成功的影响之间的关系。该项目有可能提供关于关键支持系统的新见解，这些系统对提高学生在STEM职业生涯中的持久性和地位具有最大影响力。项目评估将使用混合方法来分析过程数据，学生自我评估，访谈和焦点小组，保留/毕业数据和研究生就业率。该计划模型和研究成果将通过在STEM教育会议上的演讲以及通过会议记录和STEM教育期刊上的出版物进行传播。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 at University of Detroit Mercy, an private, urban university. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 20 unique full-time students pursuing four-year degrees in engineering, mathematics, or computer science. Scholars will enter in two cohorts and receive up to four years of annual scholarship support. The project intends to increase Scholars’ retention, graduation, and employment rates by working with existing on-campus resources and external industrial partners to implement sustainable high-impact practices. Scholars will engage in activities fostering personal, career, and academic development including participation in cohort-building activities, group counseling, multiple industry internships, and peer, faculty, and industry mentoring. The project has the potential to broaden participation in the STEM workforce and address a regional need for a skilled workforce. Results from this project could inform other higher education institutions about how to implement research-proven student retention practices to support diverse students in resource-limited environments.The overall goal of the project is to increase degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates in STEM fields. The project aims to: (1) support students personally and professionally in the pursuit of STEM degrees; (2) improve students’ professional identity and sense of belonging in the STEM community; and (3) increase student interest in STEM careers. Research on successful STEM undergraduate programs has identified high-impact practices, including cohort building, residential communities, mentorship, and research experiences. However, knowledge is limited regarding how to replicate such high-impact practices in small institutions with limited resources that serve heterogeneous student populations. This project will assess the hypothesis that such institutions can emulate these research-proven practices in an effective and sustainable manner. Specifically, the project seeks to explore the relationship between industry internships, group counseling experiences, and non-residential cohort-building impact on students’ STEM identity and success. This project has the potential to provide new insights on the critical support systems most influential in enhancing student persistence and placement in STEM careers for a diverse undergraduate population. Project evaluation will use a mixed-methods approach to analyze process data, student self-assessments, interviews and focus groups, retention/graduation data, and post-graduate career placement rates. The program model and research findings will be disseminated through presentations at STEM education conferences and through publications in conference proceedings and STEM education 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.