Assessing Peer Mentorship as a Scalable Intervention to Promote the Academic Success and Retention of Diverse Undergraduate Biology Majors

本项目旨在通过提高本科生物专业学生的学业成绩和保留率来服务于国家利益。在美国的大多数大学里，大约有50%的生物学本科生在学习的前两年就离开了本专业。为了解决这一问题，大多数机构都实施了一些一年级学生支持计划。然而，在学生保留率最低的第二年，生物学专业的学生面临着相当大的挑战，得到的支持也明显减少。该项目旨在通过在两个研究密集型的少数民族服务机构实施和描述近同伴指导计划来提高二年级生物专业学生的成功率。高年级生物同侪导师，他们自己克服了学生成功的常见障碍，将为他们的二年级生物专业学生提供学术见解和支持。重要的是，本项目旨在阐明同伴指导促进学员学业成功的理论机制。加深对同伴导师制如何起作用的理解，可以使这一战略在国家层面上的各种高等教育学术环境中得到广泛采用和成功实施。反过来，这应该会增加STEM学位毕业生的数量、质量和多样性。为了评估同伴指导的影响，本项目将采用严格的随机对照研究设计，以评估同伴指导如何影响学员(1)短期和长期的学业成绩和保留率，(2)归属感，学术自我效能感和学术习惯复杂性。此外，该项目将重点关注识别和调查有效的近同伴指导实践，以评估这些行为如何影响学员的成果。为了评估同伴导师制在不同的大学中是否具有可扩展性，本项目将在两家大型公共西班牙裔服务机构实施同伴导师制项目，这两家机构的生物学项目在二年级的学术挑战相似。师徒结构将包括学员：导师以6:1的比例进行分组，学员参与指导讨论与学生成功相关的主题的研讨会课程，以及每周导师检查。为了描述这些指导结构并实现前面提到的目标，将从各种来源收集数据。每个项目现场的机构研究小组将为学员提供学术成绩、专业声明和人口统计数据，而项目生成的调查工具将捕获学员的非认知影响以及与这些结果相关的导师行为。综合起来，这些数据将促进对同伴指导如何促进学生在具有挑战性的STEM专业取得学业成功的理解。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。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 aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate biology student academic success and retention in the major. At most universities in the United States, roughly 50% of undergraduate biology students leave the major within the first two years of their studies. To address this concern, most institutions put in place a number of first-year student support programs. There are, however, considerable challenges and significantly fewer supports for biology students in their second year of study when the student retention rate is at its lowest. This project seeks to improve the success of second year biology majors by implementing and characterizing near-peer mentorship programs at two research-intensive, minority serving institutions. Upper division biology peer mentors who have themselves overcome common barriers to student success will provide academic insights and supports tailored to their second-year biology major mentees. Importantly, this project is intended to shed light on the theoretical mechanisms by which peer mentorship promotes mentee academic success. Advancing understanding of how peer mentorship works may enable wide adoption and successful implementation of this strategy at a national level across various post-secondary academic settings. In turn, this should increase the number, quality, and diversity of students graduating with STEM degrees. To assess the impact of peer mentorship, this project will employ a rigorous randomized control research design that will enable the assessment of how peer mentorship influences mentee (1) short-term and longer-term academic performance and retention and (2) sense of belonging, academic self-efficacy, and academic habit complexity. Additionally, the project will include a focus on identifying and investigating effective near-peer mentorship practices to assess how these behaviors impact mentee outcomes. To assess whether peer mentorship is a scalable intervention at diverse universities, this project will implement peer mentorship programs at two large, public Hispanic-serving institutions where both biology programs share similar academic challenges at the second year level. The mentorship structure will include mentee:mentor cohorts in 6:1 ratios, a seminar course where mentees participate in guided discussions on topics relevant to student success, and weekly mentor check-ins. To characterize these mentorship structures and achieve the previously mentioned goals, data will be collected from a variety of sources. Institutional Research groups at each project site will provide academic grades, major declaration, and demographic data for mentees, while project-generated survey instruments will capture mentee noncognitive impacts and mentor behaviors linked with these outcomes. Combined, these data will advance understanding of how peer mentoring promotes student academic success in challenging STEM majors. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.