Background & Program Description: The link between student engagement and retention is well-established in the education literature. As a result, many colleges have developed first-year experience programs to engage students in early technical work and to promote community-building. However, many of these student success programs require participation in extracurricular activities, which require time outside of class. Yet time for extracurricular activities is a luxury that many students of low socioeconomic status (SES) cannot afford due to family or work obligations.
The Scholarships in STEM (S-STEM) program, funded by the National Science Foundation, provides crucial financial support to high-achieving low-SES STEM students. The S-STEM scholarships give students the option to work less or not at all. The intended result is that students regain the time afforded to their more privileged peers, thereby also giving them the opportunity to more effectively engage with their institution, studies, and peers.
The Endeavour Program is a two-year program that incorporates the S-STEM financial support into a multi-faceted and multi-college program in STEM designed to increase the level of student engagement in school. The scholars, who are recruited from three colleges, take classes together, work on hands-on team projects, attend professional and personal development events, participate in outreach events, and conduct research with faculty mentors. Over the course of the two-year program, four dimensions of student engagement (academic, behavioral, cognitive, and affective) are tracked to determine the appropriateness of using these engagement levels as predictors of success.
Results: Two cohorts of 20 students were recruited in the fall of 2017 and in the fall of 2018. The first cohort completed the two-year program in the spring of 2020, and the second cohort began the second year of the program in the fall of 2020. No third cohort was recruited in 2020 due the Covid19 pandemic. The third and fourth cohorts will now enter the program in the fall of 2021 and the fall of 2022 respectively.
Overall, the results of the Endeavour Program have been positive. The final retention outcome for the first cohort (the only cohort to complete the program thus far) was 85% (17/20). Retention for the second cohort is currently at 100% (20/20). Initial results show that the S-STEM scholars are performing academically as well as their peers who do not share the same risk factors. In addition, the number of completed hours is also on par with their peers. However, the most significant gains were observed in the qualitative data. Students expressed fears and anxieties about the high school to college transition and reported that the guidance provided and the community formed through the Endeavour Program alleviated many of those negative emotions.
The full paper shows student engagement data obtained over time for the first and second cohorts as well as lessons learned and directions for future work. Also, examples of advising charts created in an engagement data dashboard show how the quantitative engagement data has been compiled and organized to show early warning signs for current and future cohorts.
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A Collective Impact Model Towards Increasing STEM Major Student Retention
This article presents the research findings of a multidisciplinary teams collective research effort at one university over a five-year period as funded by the National Science Foundations mproving ndergraduate TE Education (IUSE) program. A collaborative learning and retention action research effort at a large Hispanic Serving Institution is analyzed using mixed methods to document the power of collective impact as the foundation for a learning support model for students historically underrepresented majoring in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) academic programs. The actions of the team of researchers are presented to describe the ising tars Collective mpact model and the impacts achieved. This is a model that aligns objectives, intervention efforts, and reports collective results. The long-term goals of the Rising tars Collective mpact multiple programs managed by the funded program team included the following: (a) to improve the campus sense of community for students historically under-represented in STEM, (b) to establish innovative and robust STEM education research-based practices to support critical skill attainment for students, and (c) to support faculty understanding of the funds of knowledge of diverse students. The positive student retention and success impacts of this research effort are measured through quantitative statistical analysis of the changes in second-year STEM undergraduate student retention rates and representation rates of women, Hispanics, and African American STEM majors.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1431578
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10160661
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of college academic support programs
- Volume:
- 2
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2577-9990
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 21-30
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Millions of dollars each year are invested in intervention programs to broaden participation and improve bachelor degree graduation rates of students enrolled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The Virginia–North Carolina Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (VA-NC Alliance), a consortium of 11 higher education institutions and one federal laboratory funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is one such investment., The VA-NC Alliance partners implement evidence-based STEM intervention programs (SIPs) informed by research and specifically designed to increase student retention and graduation rates in STEM majors. The VA-NC Alliance is conducting an Alliance-wide longitudinal research project based in Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) titled “What’s Your STEMspiration?” The goal of the research project is to assess the differentiated impacts and effectiveness of the Alliance’s broadening participation efforts and identify emergent patterns, adding to the field of knowledge about culturally responsive SIPs. In other words, “What’s Your STEMspiration?” explores what influences and inspires undergraduates to pursue a STEM degree and career; and how does the development of a STEM identity support students in achieving their goals. In order to complete this research, the research team developed a survey instrument to conduct the quantitative portion of the study. Two preliminary studies, statistical analysis, and cognitive interviews were used to develop and validate the survey instrument. This paper discusses the theoretical and conceptual frameworks and preliminary studies upon which the survey is built, the methodology used to validate the instrument, and the resulting final survey tool.
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null (Ed.)As our nation’s need for engineering professionals grows, a sharp rise in P-12 engineering education programs and related research has taken place (Brophy, Klein, Portsmore, & Rogers, 2008; Purzer, Strobel, & Cardella, 2014). The associated research has focused primarily on students’ perceptions and motivations, teachers’ beliefs and knowledge, and curricula and program success. The existing research has expanded our understanding of new K-12 engineering curriculum development and teacher professional development efforts, but empirical data remain scarce on how racial and ethnic diversity of student population influences teaching methods, course content, and overall teachers’ experiences. In particular, Hynes et al. (2017) note in their systematic review of P-12 research that little attention has been paid to teachers’ experiences with respect to racially and ethnically diverse engineering classrooms. 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