Analysis of Variation in Student Success in Engineering Degrees among Several Institutions

随着国家机构努力扩大STEM领域的参与度和多样性，面向代表不足的少数族裔(URM)学生，某些大学在向URG学生授予STEM学位方面取得了比其他大学更成功的记录。该项目的目的是通过公立和赠与土地大学协会(APLU)和美国工程教育学会(ASEE)的合作，探索3个机构的成功体制做法。调查人员将特别关注各院校基于股权的政策和做法，因为这与授予URM学生的工程学学位有关。这项工作是2018年工程教育国家科学基金会奖EEC-1734899现状报告的产物，特别是它的第一份报告，题为工程学位授予的多样性快照。该项目发现，在大型研究机构、MSI和所有其他机构授予URM学生的工程学学位数量方面，它们的成功程度存在显著差异。作为前述分析的结果，调查员还将重点关注各校园的战略差异，并将寻求查明独特程序、政策和做法的相似性和多样性。最后，调查人员将利用ASEE学位数据库，按URM学生分类，分析这些机构采用这些程序、政策和做法的时机，以应对学位完成的趋势。这个项目将研究这样一个关键问题：“我们能否确定侧重于公平的具体政策和做法，以解释授予URM学生的本科工程学位在机构之间的差异？”这一方法将基于公立大学和赠与土地大学协会(APLU)和美国工程教育学会(ASEE)之间潜在的富有成效的伙伴关系。简而言之，目标院校将从APLU对其先前工程学位结业研究的分析中挑选出来。然后，对于这些机构，我们将检查我们所知道的关于教育改进的情况--参考ASEE汇编的著名机构政策和做法。最后，我们将利用ASEE学位纵向数据库(按URM学生分类)，针对这些院校学位完成的趋势，分析采用这些改变的时机。这项工作的结果可能会对广泛的STEM教育项目有所帮助。也许最值得注意的是，CAHSI(拉美裔服务机构计算联盟)、First2网络和海洋包括联盟都试图提高URM学生在本科STEM专业的成功。进一步确定对学生成功具有更强杠杆作用的制度变革，可能有助于这些和其他教育改进努力。更广泛的影响可以提供具体政策和实践之间的潜在关系，以提高教育成功，随着URM学生获得的学位随着时间的推移而增加-虽然本研究侧重于工程学学位，但对实践成功的方法和理解可以延续到其他学科。最后，更广泛的影响可能会在APLU及其整体机构成员和ASEE与其以学科为基础的大学成员之间建立潜在的长期合作伙伴关系，以改善URG学生的教育。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。

As the nation’s institutions struggle to broaden participation and diversity across STEM fields to underrepresented minority (URM) students, there are certain universities who have a track record of being more successful in granting STEM degrees to URG students than others. The purpose of this project through the collaboration of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the American Society on Engineering Education – ASEE will be to explore the successful institutional practices of 3 institutions. The investigators will specifically focus on the equity-based policies and practices that the institutions have in place as it pertains to engineering degrees awarded to URM students. The work is an outgrowth of the 2018 Status Report on Engineering Education NSF award EEC-1734899 and particularly its first report entitled A Snapshot of Diversity in Degrees Conferred in Engineering. That project identified significant variations across large research institutions, MSIs and all other institutions in their success in the number of engineering degrees they awarded to URM students. As a result of the previous analysis, the investigators will also focus on the strategic variations across the campuses and will be looking to identify the similarities and diversifications of unique procedures, policies and practices. Finally, the investigators would analyze the timing of the adoption of these procedures, policies, and practices against the trend in degree completion for those institutions drawing on the ASEE database of degrees, disaggregated by URM students. This project will examine the key question of, “Can we identify specific equity focused policies and practices to explain variation among institutions in undergraduate engineering degrees awarded to URM students?” The approach will be based on a potentially productive partnership between the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the American Society on Engineering Education – ASEE. In short, the target institutions would be selected from the APLU analysis of its prior study on engineering degree completion. Then for those institutions, we would examine what we know about improvements in education – drawing on the ASEE compilation of notable institutional policies and practices. Finally, we would analyze the timing of the adoption of these changes in practice against the trend in degree completion for those institutions drawing on the ASEE longitudinal data base of degrees, disaggregated by URM students. Results of this work might be helpful to a broad swath of STEM education projects. Perhaps most notably, the CAHSI (Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions), First2 Network and Seas INCLUDES Alliances are all attempting to enhance the success of URM students in undergraduate STEM majors. Further identification of the institutional changes that are more powerful levers for student success might be helpful to these and other education improvement efforts. The broader impacts could provide potential relationships among specific policies and practices to improve education success with increases in degrees gained by URM students over time – while this study focuses on engineering degrees, the approach and understanding of success of practices could carry over to other disciplines. Lastly, the broader impact could create a potential long-term partnership for educational improvement for URG students between APLU, with its overall institutional members, and ASEE with its discipline-based college members.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.