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1. Finding Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) for STEM Education Best Practices: When a Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

   https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2022.2051707  

   López, Omar S. (March 2022, Journal of Latinos and Education)

   The present study illustrates how select data can be organized to guide researchers to HSIs proficient at graduating Hispanics with STEM bachelor’s degrees to investigate best practices that less proficient HSIs can adopt for program improvement. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) was the data source. The primary analytic consisted of the scatterplot, supplemented by Pearson correlation r and regression analysis. While the findings failed to support the Hispanic undergraduate Pell rate as an explanatory variable for Hispanic STEM degree production capacity as the response variable, in a new light, the findings were an ideal model for initiating best practices research. Guidelines on initiating a “thousand word” discourse on best practices among HSI stakeholders, common defining moments one should anticipate at site visits, as well as the limitations and assumptions of the approach are presented. Based on the data, if low performing HSIs met the minimum benchmark level identified, the model predicted an increase of 17,392 or 50.7% additional Hispanics with STEM degrees for the US academic, technical, and professional workforce. 

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2. STEM education and workforce policy: its history and politics

   Salzman, Hal (February 2023, EBSCO Pathways to Research Salem Press/EBSCO)

   "STEM" is a term that has intuitive appeal but lacks an agreed-upon definition. As such, it has become a term whose ubiquity and ambiguity allow it to be used for a range of policy and political purposes. The longstanding focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) as a focal point of education and workforce policy makes it important to understand what is considered a STEM field, for what purposes the STEM designation is used, and how it has become a highly politicized term that lacks practical meaning. The use of STEM in policy historically and currently is used to support a range of policy objectives beyond improving science and engineering education or workforce development. 

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3. Incentivizing STEM participation: Evidence from the SMART Grant Program

   https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12597  

   Blume‐Kohout, Margaret E.; Scott, Jacob P. (August 2022, Southern Economic Journal)

   The U.S. National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant program provided up to $8000 to high-achieving, low-income undergraduates majoring in STEM fields. We evaluate the effects of this financial incentive on college graduates' major fields and subsequent STEM workforce retention using nationally-representative survey data and a difference-in-differences quasi-experimental approach. The SMART Grant program significantly increased the probability that first-generation college graduates majored in STEM, by about 7 percentage points. However, this increase is almost entirely offset by affected STEM graduates' significantly lower STEM workforce retention. These program effects also appear to be concentrated among students whose parents had some college experience rather than those who were first in their families to attend college. 

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4. One Step at a Time: Deepening Socio-technical Learning in Undergraduate ICT Externships to Bridge the Digital Divide

   Pickering, Cynthia; Fisher, Erik; Ross, Paul (January 2021, International Conference on Internet Technologies & Society)

   This paper describes the temporal progression of human and social dimensions that undergraduate information and communications technology (ICT) students realized during an experiential learning externship where they explored digital divide technology solutions for low-income neighborhoods in the surrounding urban community. The described research represents significant adaptation and use of socio-technical integration research (STIR) with undergraduate ICT students engaged in work based experiential learning to promote equity in STEM education, instill a sense of civic responsibility, and practice approaches to tackling complex societal problems. Methods used for the research study included: STIR, semi-structured interviews, and on-site group observations. Using STIR, an embedded social scientist conducted regular one-on-one dialogs with three of four student externs, to collaboratively describe each student’s consideration of human and social dimensions as part of their technical work, explore alternative choices and their potential outcomes, and engage in reflexive learning that in some cases, influenced deliberate changes to material and behavioral practices. The on-site observation of group activities within the ICT innovation center situated in the local urban community provided additional ecosystem context during technical solution design and development of the digital divide solution for local high schools and feeder schools. Outcomes for participating undergraduate ICT students showed: 1) Technology learning improvements for all students; 2) Capacity building to reflect, anticipate and respond to socio-technical interactions for some students; and 3) Each student was able to progress to a new level of socio-technical learning and decision making. Reflexive discourse with participants surfaced cultural assets and consideration of alternative knowledges in collaborative technology design, development, and implementation that can potentially lead to solutions that are more community centered now and in the future as the ICT students transition to the workforce. 

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5. SOCIO-TECHNICAL LEARNING: CONTEXTUALIZING UNDERGRADUATE EXTERNSHIPS TO BRIDGE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

   Pickering, Cynthia; Fisher, Erik; Ross, Paul (July 2022, IADIS international journal on computers science and information systems)

   This paper describes the temporal progression of human and social dimensions that undergraduate information and communications technology (ICT) students realized during an experiential learning externship where they explored digital divide technology solutions for low-income neighborhoods in the surrounding urban community. The described research represents significant adaptation and use of socio-technical integration research (STIR) with undergraduate ICT students engaged in work based experiential learning to promote equity in STEM education, instill a sense of civic responsibility, and practice approaches to tackling complex societal problems. Methods used for the research study included: STIR, semi-structured interviews, and on-site group observations. Using STIR, an embedded social scientist conducted regular one-on-one dialogs with three of four student externs, to collaboratively describe each student’s consideration of human and social dimensions as part of their technical work, explore alternative choices and their potential outcomes, and engage in reflexive learning that in some cases, influenced deliberate changes to material and behavioral practices. The on-site observation of group activities within the ICT innovation center situated in the local urban community provided additional ecosystem context during technical solution design and development of the digital divide solution for local high schools and feeder schools. Outcomes for participating undergraduate ICT students showed: 1) Technology learning improvements for all students; 2) Capacity building to reflect, anticipate and respond to socio-technical interactions for some students; and 3) Each student was able to progress to a new level of socio-technical learning and decision making. Reflexive discourse with participants surfaced cultural assets and consideration of alternative knowledges in collaborative technology design, development, and implementation that can potentially lead to solutions that are more community centered now and in the future as the ICT students transition to the workforce. 

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