Collaborative Research: EAGER: Using allies to expand your network: Implementing a psychological methodology to attract and retain underrepresented (UR) students in geoscience

地球科学在多样性方面存在一个基本率问题：少数民族和残疾人的代表性严重不足。这可以追溯到少数族裔学者面临的各种障碍，包括：HBCUs和主要为西班牙裔服务的机构缺乏地球科学专业，缺乏与自然打交道的经验和时间（例如，美国国家公园的游客中有3%是黑人和西班牙裔），以及对职业前景的消极态度。对于残疾人来说，主要的挑战是无障碍和提供适当的便利。由于这些观念和障碍，UR个人可能会自我选择地球科学课程。这个项目将检验这样一种观点，即具有主导社会身份的盟友或成员最能对这些统计数据产生积极影响。学术盟友，无论是教师还是研究生助教，对学生的学术参与都有巨大的影响，可以成为改善大学学生未来发展轨迹的关键。pi将培训个人有效的盟友行为，并激励他们招募UR学生参加他们的学术实地考察。PIs计划将目标对准从事实地研究和教育的盟友，因为地球科学是一个独特的STEM领域，因为许多数据收集和技能开发都是在世界各地的自然环境中进行的。pi建议测试一种策略，为UR学生克服这方面的障碍，因为在实地环境中的积极（或消极）经历对招聘和保留有深远的影响。该项目将促进对大约80个学术盟友的培训和评估，并衡量培训对盟友以及数百名多数派和大学学生的影响。期望培训将产生二次效应：学术联盟为他们所有的学生和教师网络树立有效行为的榜样，创造“培训培训师”的连锁反应。pi将使用学术实地考察作为衡量工具，包括多来源评级，将通常在绩效评估中收集的360度类型评级应用于此设置。可交付成果包括对联盟计划及其对联盟相关态度和行为的改善的实验性、纵向（随时间推移）和多来源分析，以及它对大学学生表现的影响。这些结果将为有关实施策略有效性的研究工作提供信息，并且材料和程序将开放源代码，以实现最大的可复制性。一个顶点会议将用于向所有参与的盟国和大学学生传播研究结果，告知提高大学地球科学小组的吸引力和保留的方法，并扩大大学网络。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。

Geoscience maintains a base-rate problem with respect to diversity: ethnic minorities and people with disabilities are highly underrepresented. This has been traced to a variety of barriers for underrepresented (UR) ethnic scholars including: a lack of geoscience majors at HBCUs and primarily Hispanic-serving institutions, a lack of experience with, and time spent in, nature (e.g., 3% of visitors to U.S. national parks are Black and Hispanic), and negative attitudes about career prospects. For people with disabilities, the main challenge is accessibility and the provision of appropriate accommodations. UR individuals may self-select out of geoscience programs due to these perceptions and barriers. This project will test the idea that allies, or members of dominant social identities, are best situated to positively influence these statistics. Academic allies, whether faculty or graduate student teaching assistants, have tremendous impact on their students’ academic engagement and can serve as linchpins for improving the future trajectories of UR students. PIs will train individuals in effective allyship behaviors, and incentivize them to recruit UR students into their academic field trips. The PIs plan to target allies who engage in field research and education, as geoscience is a unique STEM field insofar as much of the data collection and skill development are practiced out in nature at locations around the world. The PIs propose testing a strategy to overcome barriers in this context for UR students, as positive (or negative) experiences in field settings have profound impacts on recruitment and retention.This project will facilitate training and assessment of approximately 80 academic allies and measure the effect of that training on allies as well as hundreds of majority and UR students. The expectation is that the training will produce a secondary effect: academic allies role model effective behaviors to all of their students and faculty networks, creating a “train-the-trainer” ripple effect. The PIs will use academic field trips as a vehicle for measurement, including multisource ratings, applying 360-degree-type ratings typically collected in performance appraisals to this setting. Deliverables include an experimental, longitudinal (over time), and multisource analysis of the allyship program and its improvement of allyship-related attitudes and behaviors, as well as its impact on the performance of UR students. These results will inform research efforts regarding the effectiveness of implemented strategies, and the materials and procedure will be made open-source for maximum replicability. A capstone conference will be used to disseminate findings to all participating allies and UR students, inform about methodologies that improve attraction and retention of UR groups in the geosciences, and expand UR networks.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.