Improving Engineering Student Success for a Diverse Student Population

该项目将为国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献，支持大峡谷大学留住并毕业有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生。为了实现这一目标，该机构将依靠其强大和值得信赖的存在，作为附近当地学区的社区领袖，为高潜力、低收入学生提供服务。在为期6年的时间里，该项目将为12名正在攻读工程或工程技术学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。这些一年级学生将获得为期4年的奖学金。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与辅导和社区建设活动联系起来，支持来自不同文化背景的学生，从而提高学生在工程学方面的留存率和毅力。其目标是创建满足所有人群需求的学习社区，并帮助不同人群在工程领域蓬勃发展。教师导师将接受培训，指导方法的应用将支持来自不同文化背景的学生。此外，学者们将在校园内有一个专门的合作空间，在那里学者们可以交流、社交、学习和举办研讨会。这个空间将建在教室和教职员工附近，这样学生就可以找到社区和社会支持，与同龄人和教职员工建立关系，并接受更有组织的指导和培训。由于大峡谷大学招收的学生群体高度多样化，该项目有可能扩大工程劳动力的参与度，并为不同的学生群体提供有关指导方法对学生在工程领域取得成功的影响的知识。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。本项目将评估以多情境为中心的指导、共同课程体验和协作空间对学生表现、留存和学习结果的有效性。本项目中使用的多背景干预模式可以帮助解决学术文化中影响学生入学和完成学业的问题，以提高学生在工程学方面的成功。这个模型有具体的背景成分，用于指导和衡量学术单位的变化。从历史上看，这一模型曾成功地应用于代表性不足的少数族裔和女性学者，但其对社会经济多样性的适用性值得进一步研究。这个项目将调查多背景方法是否可以支持低收入学生，以及哪些组成部分在帮助学生取得成功方面最有效。将使用并行混合方法评估项目成果，包括对项目会议、重点小组和调查的定性评估，以及协作空间利用、所选课程和GPA等活动的定量数据。项目成果将通过教职员工发展研讨会向大学利益攸关方提供。项目小组将通过在美国工程教育学会等国家会议上的发言和同行评议的期刊出版物，向工程教育界传播项目成果。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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优势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 Grand Canyon University. To realize this goal the institution will rely on its strong and trusted presence as a community leader among nearby local school districts that serve high-potential, low-income students. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 12 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Engineering or Engineering Technology. These first-year students will receive 4-year scholarships. This project aims to increase student retention and persistence in engineering by linking scholarships with mentoring and community-building activities to support students from different cultural backgrounds. The goal is to create learning communities that meet the needs of all populations and help diverse populations to thrive in engineering. Faculty mentors will be trained in the application of mentoring approaches that will support students coming from different cultural backgrounds. Further, the scholars will have a dedicated collaborative space on campus in which scholars can mingle, socialize, study, and hold seminars. This space will be located close to classrooms and faculty so that students can find community and social supports, build relationships with peers and faculty, and receive more structured mentoring and training. Because Grand Canyon University enrolls a highly diverse student population, this project has the potential to broaden participation in the engineering workforce and advance knowledge about the impact of mentoring approaches on student success in engineering for a diverse student population.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This project will assess the effectiveness of multicontextuality-centered mentoring, co-curricular experiences, and the collaborative space on student performance, retention, and learning outcomes. The multicontext intervention model used in this project can help address issues within academic cultures that affect student enrollment and completion to improve student success in engineering. This model has specific contextual components for both guiding and measuring change in academic units. Historically, this model has been applied successfully for underrepresented minority and female scholars but its applicability for socioeconomic diversity warrants further study. This project will investigate whether multicontextual approaches can support low-income students and which components are most effective in helping students succeed. A concurrent mixed-methods approach will be used to evaluate project outcomes including qualitative assessments of project meetings, focus groups, and surveys as well as quantitative data for activities such as collaborative space utilization, courses taken, and GPAs. Project results will be made available to university stakeholders via faculty and staff development seminars. The project team will disseminate project outcomes to the engineering education community through presentations at national conferences such as the American Society for Engineering Education and peer-reviewed journal publications. 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.