Collaborative Research: The Effects of Information, Mentoring and Time on Economic Faculty at MSIs

少数民族服务机构（MSIs）的教师在教育和培训科学领袖方面做出了相当大的贡献。然而，随着时间的推移，美国国家科学基金会（NSF）很少收到来自MSI教师的建议。该项目将实施一项干预措施，以两种方式支持MSI教师。首先，MSI教师将有时间撰写并向NSF提交提案。其次，教师将在提案准备过程中得到指导。该项目将通过收集和分析学员（即MSI教师参与者）的数据来评估干预措施的影响。预计该干预措施将增加MSI教师提交的NSF提案，提高他们的提案准备技能，并从长远来看，有助于MSI教师更大程度地融入STEM。本科生可以通过协助数据收集和分析来支持研究过程。先前的研究表明，建议指导干预可能通过几个渠道改变行为，如信息意识和反馈、角色模型和网络、认知负荷理论和元认知意识。在这些不同的变化理论背后，是一个似乎被视为理所当然的因素：教师的时间可用性。这项研究将直接解决时间限制问题，为MSI教师学员提供课程发布，让他们撰写提案，并通过密集的指导、研讨会和汇报来解决其他限制问题。调查结果将来自定量和定性数据分析相结合的混合方法（即调查和焦点小组）。将通过比较不同的结果来评估影响，特别是向NSF提交的提案，在参与干预之前和之后，对治疗组的学员和对照组的申请但未被录取的学员进行干预。研究结果将在学术会议、与美国国家科学基金会（NSF）等联邦机构的会议上发布，并以最终报告的形式发布在国家经济研究局（National Bureau of Economic Research）上。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。

Faculty at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) make considerable contributions to educating and training science leaders. Yet, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has received few proposals from MSI faculty over time. This project will implement an intervention that will support MSI faculty in two ways. First, MSI faculty will be granted time to write and submit proposals to the NSF. Second, faculty will be mentored through the proposal preparation process. The project will evaluate the impacts of the intervention by collecting and analyzing data from mentees, i.e., MSI faculty participants. The intervention is expected to increase NSF proposal submissions by MSI faculty, improve their proposal preparation skills, and in the long run, contribute to greater inclusion of faculty at MSIs in STEM. Undergraduate students at will support the research process by assisting with data collection and analysis. Prior initiatives suggest that a proposal mentoring intervention such is likely to change behavior through several channels, e.g., information awareness and feedback, role models and networks, cognitive load theory, and metacognitive awareness. Underlying these different theories of change, is a factor that seems to have been taken for granted: faculty’s time availability. This research will directly tackle time constraints by offering MSI faculty mentees a course release to write proposals and address other constraints through intensive mentoring, workshops, and debriefing. Findings will be derived from a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative and qualitative data analyses (i.e., surveys and focus groups). Impacts will be assessed by comparing different outcomes, in particular proposal submissions to NSF, before and after participating in the intervention across a treatment group of mentees and a control group of those who applied but were not admitted. Findings will be disseminated at academic conferences, meetings with federal agencies such as NSF, and by means of a final report to be posted on the National Bureau of Economic Research.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.