The Computer Science as a Career (CSAC) Scholarship Program

该项目将通过支持德克萨斯农工大学（商科）和德克萨斯州东北部两所社区学院（科林学院和达拉斯学院）中表现出经济需求的优秀低收入学生的保留和毕业，为满足全国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。该项目名为“计算机科学作为职业”（CSAC）奖学金计划，为期5年，将为攻读计算机科学学位的学生提供179份奖学金。该项目的目标是增加来自不同社会人口背景的有经济需求的学术天才学生的招聘、保留、转学和毕业。这一目标将通过提供课外活动和项目来实现，这些活动和项目将招收计算机及相关领域的学生，增加从地方社区学院到大学的转学率，并提高计算机专业学生的留校率和毕业率。该计划将有助于职业准备的专业人士能够支持具有全球竞争力的技术劳动力池。该项目将鼓励学生攻读和完成计算机学位，并通过许多现有的高质量、基于证据的项目元素，如夏令营、讲习班和学生指导项目，提高计算思维技能。项目团队将进行一项混合方法研究，以检查项目目标的影响，并探索CSAC参与者如何在计算项目中，特别是女性和来自代表性不足群体的学生，发展和维持计算身份，并在这些领域坚持下去。本研究将运用现象学方法检视CSAC参与者的生活经验与电脑认同发展。研究将集中于计算身份的发展过程，捕捉与能力、绩效和认可相关的关键因素，这些因素可能有助于CSAC参与者面临的挑战和/或成功。这项研究的结果将有助于更好地理解如何改善来自代表性不足群体的学生的计算机教育，以及如何更有效地与未来的学生接触。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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 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 Texas A&M University (Commerce) and two community colleges in northeast Texas (Collin College and Dallas College). Over its 5-year duration, this project, the Computer Science as a Career (CSAC) Scholarship Program, will provide 179 scholarships to students who are pursuing degrees in Computer Science. The goal of this project is to increase the recruitment, retention, transfer, and graduation of academically talented students with demonstrated financial needs from diverse sociodemographic backgrounds. This goal will be accomplished by providing co-curricular activities and programs that recruit students to computing and related fields, increase the rate of transfer from local community colleges to universities, and improve the retention and graduation rates of computing students. This program will contribute to the pool of career ready professionals capable of supporting a globally competitive technical workforce.The project will encourage students to pursue and complete computing degrees and improve computational thinking skills through many existing high-quality, evidence-based program elements such as summer camps, workshops, and student mentoring programs. The project team will conduct a mixed methods research study to examine the effects of the project objectives and explore how CSAC participants in computing programs, particularly women and students from underrepresented groups, develop and sustain computing identities and persist within these fields. This research study will utilize a phenomenological approach to examine the lived experiences and computing identity development of CSAC participants. The research will focus on the computing identity development process, capturing key elements related to competence, performance, and recognition that may contribute to either the challenges to and/or the success of participants in CSAC. The results of this research will lead to a better understanding of how to improve computing education for students from underrepresented populations and how to more effectively engage with prospective students. 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.