Increasing Graduation Rates of Undergraduate Chemistry and Physics Majors by Connecting College to Careers

这个项目将有助于满足国家对熟练的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。它将通过支持乔治亚学院和州立大学（Georgia College and State University）有经济需要的成绩优异的低收入家庭学生的坚持和毕业来实现这一目标。该项目为期五年，将为18名攻读化学和/或物理学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。这些学者将进入两个年度队列，并获得长达四年的奖学金支持。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与有效的支持活动（包括辅导、团队咨询、指导、本科研究经历、服务学习、研究生入学准备、实习和社区建设）联系起来，提高学生的坚持度。该项目还将支持旨在提高二年级学生保留率的课程改进。通过项目评估和研究，将产生关于影响STEM本科生教育机会、持久性、学术和毕业后成功的因素的新知识，包括那些传统上在STEM中代表性不足的人群。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。学术和社会支持活动，如暑期桥、本科生研究、一年级研讨会和指导，可以增加学生在STEM方面的坚持和成功。然而，关于此类活动对低收入STEM专业学生的影响的数据有限，这些学生通过获得额外的财政支持而获得了更多的机会。具体来说，这些支持活动如何影响STEM本科生的参与度、自我效能感、坚持性和毕业后的安置，我们知之甚少。为了帮助填补这一空白，该项目将调查在低风险的社会环境中进行早期社区建设活动对学者的坚持、参与和归属感的影响。它还将研究第二年的研究方法和科学交流研讨会对学者自我效能感和本科生研究兴趣的影响。为了更好地了解在STEM领域有学术天赋的低收入学生的职业道路和目标，该项目旨在确定参加暑期实习和本科研究对毕业后工作和研究生院安置的影响。项目评估员将使用混合方法来检查项目实施（产出）、项目对参与者的影响（结果）以及项目的战略影响和可持续性。该项目的成果将通过同行评审期刊的出版物、科学会议上的报告和项目网站上的公告来传播。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

This project will help meet the national need for skilled scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. It will do so by supporting the persistence and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with financial need at Georgia College and State University. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide scholarships to eighteen full-time students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in chemistry and/or physics. The Scholars will enter in two annual cohorts and receive up to four years of scholarship support. The project seeks to increase student persistence by linking scholarships with effective supporting activities, including tutoring, team advising, mentoring, undergraduate research experiences, service learning, graduate school preparation, internships, and community building. The project will also support curriculum improvements designed to increase second-year student retention. Through project evaluation and research, new knowledge will be generated about factors that influence educational access, persistence, and academic and post-graduation success of STEM undergraduates, including those from populations traditionally underrepresented in STEM. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Academic and social support activities, such as summer bridge, undergraduate research, first-year seminar, and mentoring, can increase student persistence and success in STEM. However, limited data exist about the impact of such activities on low-income STEM majors who gain increased access to them by receiving additional financial support. Specifically, little is known how these support activities affect STEM undergraduates' engagement, self-efficacy, persistence, and post-graduation placement. To help fill this gap, the project will investigate the effects of early community-building activities in a low-stakes social environment on Scholars’ persistence, engagement, and sense of belonging. It will also study the impact of a second-year research methods and scientific communication seminar on Scholars’ self-efficacy and interest in undergraduate research. To better understand the career pathways and goals of academically talented, low-income students in STEM, the project aims to determine the impact that participation in summer internships and undergraduate research has on post-graduation job and graduate school placement. The project evaluator will use a mixed-methods approach to examine project implementation (outputs), the project's impact on participants (outcomes), and strategic impacts and sustainability of the project. The results of the project will be disseminated by publications in peer-reviewed journals, presentations in scientific conferences, and posting on the project website. 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 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.