Coaching and Retention for Engineering Students: Improving Low-Income Student Success in Engineering with Innovative Mentoring and Early Internship Experiences

该项目将通过支持沿海卡罗来纳大学（位于南卡罗来纳康威的一所公立综合性文理学院）中表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为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。该项目为期6年，将为11名攻读工程科学学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。一年级学生将获得长达四年的奖学金支持。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与有效的支持活动（包括夏季桥梁课程、指导和早期专业工程经验）联系起来，提高学生在工程专业的坚持度和学位获得率。在量身定制的一年级课程和导师指导的帮助下，这些学者将在大二的暑期学期以工程实习生的身份在工业界就业。奖学金获得者将从项目行业合作伙伴的实习工程师那里获得工作现场指导，他们将提供和监督实习经验。该项目将调查在指导、评估和评价课程改进方面的改进做法，以及工业向高等教育课程反馈的有效机制。由于卡罗莱纳海岸大学的工程科学项目有大量未被充分代表的学生，因此该项目具有扩大工程参与的潜力，并了解指导和早期实习经验如何支持这些学生群体的保留和毕业。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。为此，项目团队将追求三个具体目标。第一种是通过两门课程的暑期桥式课程，将数学训练营和工程制图课程结合起来，通过一个有趣的、以技能为重点的、探索性的快速原型设计项目进行连接。第二是通过一个以自我调节学习策略为重点的指导项目来提高学生的学业成就。第三，也是最后一点，是通过最终的早期工程实习经历，赋予完成学位所带来的自我效能感和激励效益。本研究将在社会认知职业理论的框架下，探讨暑期桥梁课程、指导和早期实习经历对学生自我效能感、结果预期、兴趣和满意度的影响。本项目将调查这些项目干预的因素，这些因素导致低收入的工程专业学生对学位完成的高满意度和持久性。根据社会认知职业理论对项目进行评估。将分析指导报告、实习求职信、工作场所能力评估、学生访谈和学习动机策略问卷，以了解学生的动机概况，并研究工程和机构数据对工程项目进展和完成的影响。结果将通过开放科学框架的项目页面提供，所有相关的项目材料将被存储并公开提供。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 Coastal Carolina University, a public comprehensive liberal arts institution located in Conway, South Carolina. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 11 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Engineering Science. First-year students will receive up to four years of scholarship support. The project aims to increase student persistence and degree attainment in engineering by linking scholarships with effective supporting activities, including summer bridge courses, mentoring, and early professional engineering experiences. With the help of a tailored first-year curriculum and mentor coaching, the scholars will obtain employment in industry as engineering interns during their summer term as rising sophomores. Scholars will receive job-site mentoring from practicing engineers at the project’s industry partners who will provide and supervise internship experiences. The project will investigate improved practices in mentoring, assessment and evaluation of curriculum improvements, and effective mechanisms for industry feedback into higher education curricula. Because the Engineering Science program at Coastal Carolina University has a high population of underrepresented students, this project has the potential to broaden participation in engineering and to learn how mentoring and early internship experiences support retention and graduation of this student population.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Towards this end the project team will pursue three specific aims. First is to accommodate developmental math-ready engineering students using a two-course summer bridge program, integrating a math boot camp and an engineering graphics course, linked by a fun, skills-focused, exploratory rapid-prototyping design project. Second is to enhance student academic success through a program of mentoring focused on self-regulated learning strategies. Third, and finally, is to confer self-efficacy and motivational benefits accruing to degree completion, through a culminating, early engineering internship experience. This project will investigate the effects of summer bridge courses, mentoring, and early internship experiences on students’ self-efficacy and outcomes expectations, interest, and satisfaction in engineering, in the framework of Social Cognitive Career Theory. This project will investigate the factors in these project interventions that result in high satisfaction and persistence to degree completion for low-income students in engineering. Evaluation of the project will be conducted in light of Social Cognitive Career Theory. Mentoring reports, internship cover letters, workplace competency assessments, student interviews, and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaires will be analyzed for benefits to students' motivational profiles and views of engineering and institutional data will be examined for impacts on Engineering program progression and completion. Results will be made available by a project page with the Open Science Framework, where all relevant project materials will be stored and publicly available. 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.