The Intersection of Science Identity and Success for Low-Income, Academically-Talented Students

该项目将有助于对受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员的国家需要，通过支持在格鲁吉亚贝瑞学院表现出经济需要的高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业。在六年的时间里，该项目将为二十一（21）个高成就，低收入的本科STEM专业的生物化学，生物学，化学，数学和物理学提供奖学金。除了财政支持，该项目将通过以学生为中心的努力，建设社区，促进学生合作，提供课程和课外支持。根据这一点，该项目将实施无数的活动和机会，包括一个夏桥计划录取学生，实地考察，学生参与会议和科学会议，小组教师指导，并列入职业探索企业。个人支持机制将包括：让家长和监护人参与学生的学业之旅，以及教师、员工、同行和STEM专业人员的个人指导。其他机制包括提供STEM研究经验的可用性，并积极建议学生参加现有的入门课程，使学生能够积极学习。项目调查人员将利用全国性的场地传播成果和发现，同时，针对其他缺乏强有力的战略计划的小型文科院校，为低收入、高天赋的STEM学生提供支持。贝里学院项目的主要目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。具体目标包括缩小STEM学生在未满足的经济需求方面的差距，并在可能的情况下消除其他挑战和障碍，以坚持获得STEM本科学位，并加强现有的支持基础设施，同时创建新的学生支持结构。此外，项目团队打算利用现有的STEM干预研究作为选择项目组成部分的理论基础。特别是，该项目将根据以学生为中心，社区建设和合作是有效管理STEM学生干预措施不可或缺的调查结果开展活动。从严格的混合方法项目评估的见解和成果将产生新的知识，支持干预措施的哪些方面，或干预措施的组合，是最有效的保留，参与，承诺，自我效能，归属感，学习成绩，和学生的整体成功。调查的路线将解决文献中的差距，并告知其他高等教育专业人士寻求支持学生与课程和课外干预相结合，特别是对于农村环境中文科院校的学生，他们在STEM学习课程的参与中代表性不足。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 Berry College in Georgia. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to twenty-one (21) high-achieving, low-income undergraduate STEM majors in biochemistry, biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. In addition to financial support, the project will provide curricular and co-curricular support through student centered efforts, building community, and fostering student collaboration. In line with this, the project will implement myriad activities and opportunities, including a summer bridge program for matriculating students, field trips, student participation at conferences and scientific meetings, small group faculty mentoring, and the inclusion of career-exploration ventures. Individual support mechanisms will include: engaging parents and guardians in their students' academic journeys, plus individual mentoring by faculty, staff, peers, and STEM professionals. Additional mechanisms involve providing the availability of STEM research experiences and proactively advising students for enrollment in extant introductory courses that engage-students in active learning pedagogies. Project investigators will disseminate outcomes and findings using national venues, while, at the same time, targeting other small, liberal-arts colleges lacking robust strategical programs to provide support to low-income, highly talented STEM students.The primary goal of this Berry College project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specific objectives include closing gaps for STEM students in unmet financial need and diminishing - eliminating when possible - other challenges and barriers to persistence to a STEM undergraduate degree, and enhancing existing support infrastructure, while creating new student support structures. Additionally, the project team intends to use extant research on STEM interventions as a theoretical grounding for choices of project components. In particular, the project will base its activities on findings that student-centeredness, community building, and collaboration are integral to effective administration of interventions for STEM students. Insights and outcomes from rigorous mixed methods project evaluation will generate new knowledge on which aspects of support interventions, or combination of interventions, are most effective for retention, engagement, commitment, self-efficacy, feeling of belonging, academic performance, and overall success of students. The lines of investigation will address gaps in the literature and inform other higher education professionals seeking to support students with a combination of curricular and co-curricular interventions, especially for students in liberal arts institutions in rural settings who are underrepresented in their participation in STEM courses of study. 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.