Enhancing Pathways to a STEM Teaching Profession for Students from Minoritized Racial/Ethnic Groups

该项目旨在通过解决美国教师短缺和STEM教育工作者缺乏种族/民族代表性来服务于国家利益。这是一个为期三年的第二阶段学生学习（ESL）跟踪项目，将设计，测试和传播基于研究的干预措施，以增加中学STEM教师的数量，特别是那些被确定为在STEM学科中代表性不足的群体的教师，在该项目中被称为少数种族/民族（MRE）群体。该项目将在佛罗里达国际大学进行，这是一个研究密集型的西班牙裔服务机构。由于超过70%的FIU学生来自MRE团体，该项目有很大的潜力直接影响不同的学生参与者，并增加未来不同学生追求中等STEM教学职业的潜力。让来自MRE团体的学生进入这些专业也应该对美国第四和第六大学区迈阿密戴德县公立学校和布劳沃德县公立学校的MRE学生产生影响，因为这些地区雇用了金融情报大学准备当教师的大部分学生。此外，该项目的研究结果有可能通过传播项目设计的教学资源和实施干预措施的讲习班，影响全国其他中学教师培训方案中的许多其他教育工作者和学生。 该研究借鉴了STEM教学身份，目标一致性和反叙事的理论框架。该项目的重点是学生的STEM教学身份发展作为一个关键成果，因为先前的研究发现，这种发展是参与和坚持的关键。目标一致性将有助于理解STEM教学职业与学生期望的价值观和目标相匹配/不匹配的机制。对抗指导干预措施的发展，挑战对STEM教学专业的刻板印象（阻碍MRE STEM学生坚持），并以个人有意义的方式吸引MRE STEM学生，帮助发展他们的STEM教学身份。该项目将分多个阶段进行，以确定影响MRE学生的STEM教学身份和FIU大型中学教师准备计划的持续性的关键因素。该项目的阶段将包括定性研究阶段，干预共同设计阶段（与MRE学生和教师）和定量研究测试阶段。定性研究将通过采访两组参与者来确定影响MRE学生STEM教学身份和坚持该计划的因素：完成招聘课程并坚持教学计划的MRE学生和那些没有的学生。共同设计阶段将利用结果来开发和试点干预措施，以提高MRE学生的STEM教学身份和对该计划的坚持。定量阶段将使用准实验设计测试干预措施对学生STEM教学认同和坚持该计划的影响。 每个阶段的研究结果和产品将传播给STEM教育研究人员/从业人员和教师准备计划的广泛受众，以确保知识成果和实际应用的最大影响。NSF IUSE：EDU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。该奖项反映了NSF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 addressing the U.S. teacher shortage and lack of racial/ethnic representation among STEM educators. This is a three-year Level II Engaged Student Learning (ESL) Track project that will design, test and disseminate research-based interventions for increasing the numbers of secondary STEM teachers, particularly those who identify as being from groups underrepresented in the STEM disciplines, referred to in this project as being from minoritized racial/ethnic (MRE) groups. The project will be conducted at Florida International University, a research-intensive Hispanic-Serving Institution. As over 70% of FIU's students are from MRE groups, this project has high potential to directly impact a diverse population of student participants and increase the potential for future diverse students pursuing secondary STEM teaching professions. Having students from MRE groups enter these professions should also have an impact on MRE students in the 4th and 6th largest school districts, Miami-Dade County Public Schools and Broward County Public Schools, in the U.S., since these districts hire a majority of FIU’s students preparing to be teachers. Furthermore, the findings from this project have the potential to impact many additional educators and students within other secondary teacher preparation programs across the nation through the propagation of project-designed instructional resources and workshops for implementing the interventions. The proposed research draws on the theoretical frameworks of STEM teaching identity, goal congruity, and counternarratives. The project focuses on students’ STEM teaching identity development as a key outcome, since prior research has found that this development is critical for engagement and persistence. Goal congruity will help to understand a mechanism through which STEM teaching careers are matched/mismatched with students' desired values and goals. Counternarratives guide development of interventions that challenge stereotypic misperceptions of the STEM teaching profession (that impede MRE STEM students from persisting) and engage MRE STEM students in personally meaningful ways that help develop their STEM teaching identities. The project will be conducted in multiple phases to identify critical factors that influence MRE students’ STEM teaching identity and persistence in FIU’s large secondary teacher preparation program. The phases of the project will include a qualitative research phase, an intervention co-design phase (with MRE students and teachers), and a quantitative research testing phase. The qualitative study will identify factors that impact MRE students’ STEM teaching identity and persistence in the program by interviewing two groups of participants: MRE students who completed the recruitment course and persisted into the teaching program and those who did not. The co-design phase will leverage results to develop and pilot interventions to enhance MRE students’ STEM teaching identity and persistence in the program. The quantitative phase will test the impact of the interventions on students’ STEM teaching identity and persistence in the program using a quasi-experimental design. Findings and products from each phase will be disseminated to a wide audience of STEM education researchers/practitioners and teacher preparation programs in order to ensure maximal impact of the intellectual outcomes and practical applications. The NSF IUSE: EDU 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.