RAPID: Understanding and Mitigating the Effects of University Closures due to COVID-19 on Black Students in Physics at the Bachelor's Level

非技术描述：新冠肺炎导致许多高校关闭校园和在线学习。这些校园关闭中断了与教育支持资源、(非正式和正式的)指导以及丰富学生经验的联合课程活动的联系。该项目研究了新冠肺炎校园关闭(并转向在线学习)对攻读物理和天文学学士学位的非裔美国人(黑人)学生的影响。在有数据的情况下，这项研究将对学生进行调查，以检查和记录关闭校园对这一学生群体的教育坚持性和弹性的影响。调查结果可能有助于深入了解，当学生经历危机时，如何有效地实施支持结构(例如，辅导、辅导、干预性建议)，例如，近亲家庭成员或朋友的死亡，由于父母一方或双方被大规模监禁或驱逐出境而破坏家庭支持结构，涉及学生或亲密家庭成员的严重疾病。这一系列工作将为审查危机期间支持其他任职人数不足和边缘化群体的学生所用的方法提供基础。技术细节：这项研究是在美国物理研究所(AIP)工作组为期两年的研究成果的框架内进行的。这项研究的建议使物理系和天文学系能够更好地支持非裔美国人(黑人)学生，他们中的许多人在完成学位方面已经面临着有据可查的障碍(由于其他独立于新冠肺炎的因素)。此外，这项研究的结果扩展到更好地理解和支持那些经历了个人危机的学生，这些学生需要短期或长期离开校园(即使在正常的校园运营期间)。该项目促进了人们对如何在危机期间提高非裔美国人(黑人)学生完成学位的复原力的理解。这些理解可以推论到其他被边缘化的学生群体。这项工作的重要性在于，通过提高这些学生在完成学士学位后进入技术劳动力大军的相对比例，人们的生活将得到改变。美国物理学领域未来的就业前景是光明的，获得这些职业将为安全稳定的金融未来提供潜力。这项研究降低了学生在攻读学士学位过程中因危机发生而被排除在就业前景之外的可能性。学生面临的危机更多的是个人危机，例如近亲家庭成员的死亡，学生或近亲家庭成员的严重疾病，大规模监禁对家庭的影响，或父母之一或双方被驱逐出境。同样，由于风暴、飓风和龙卷风等灾害而导致一些物理系关闭的经济危机，也对物理系及其学生造成了干扰。这项研究将从突如其来的集体危机(即新冠肺炎校园关闭)中吸取的教训与物理系可以采取的精心设计的行动联系起来，以应对个人性质的危机。这项研究为更好地服务学生和防止危机对代表不足的少数族裔学生的不同影响做出了有益的贡献。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。

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: COVID-19 resulted in campus closures and online learning at many colleges and universities. These campus closures disrupted connections to educational support resources, mentorship (informal and formal), and co-curricular activities that enrich the students’ experiences. This project studies the impacts of the COVID-19 campus closures (and move to online learning) on African American (Black) students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy. While the data is available, this study will survey students to examine and document the impact of campus closures to educational persistence and resilience for this population of students. Findings may provide insights into how support structures (e.g. mentoring, tutoring, intrusive advising) can be effectively implemented when students undergo crisis, such as death of a close family member or friend, disruption to home support structures due to mass incarceration or deportation of one or both parents, serious illness involving the student or close family member. This body of work will provide a basis for examining the methods used to support students from other underrepresented and marginalized groups during crisis. TECHNICAL DETAILS: This study is being undertaken within the framework of outcomes gained by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) TEAM UP Task Force’s two-year study. Recommendations from this study enable physics and astronomy departments to better support African American (Black) students, many of whom already face well-documented obstacles to completing their degrees (due to other factors which are independent of COVID-19). Moreover, findings of this study extend to better understand and support students who undergo personal crises that require short-term or long-term absences from campus (even during normal campus operations). The project advances understanding of how to increase resilience toward degree completion for African American (Black) students during crises. These understandings could extrapolate to other marginalized populations of students. The importance of this work is that people's lives will be changed by increasing the relative percentage of these students who enter the technical workforce after having completed bachelor's degrees. The future job outlook in physics in the U.S. is promising, and access to these careers will provide the potential for a secure and stable financial future. This research lessens the likelihood that students will be left out of these job prospects due to the occurrence of crises during their pursuit of the bachelor’s degree. Crises that students face are more often personal crises, such as death of a close family member, serious illness to the student or close family member, effects of mass incarceration on families, or deportation of one or both parents. Likewise, economic crises resulting in the closures of some physics departmental occurring due to disasters such as storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes also present a disruption to physics departments and their students. This study bridges the learning from a sudden and collective crisis (i.e. COVID-19 campus closures) to well-designed actions that physics departments can take to address crises of a personal nature. This study provides useful contributions to better serve students and to prevent differential effects of crises on underrepresented minority 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.