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1. STEM Graduation Outcomes of the Rice University Emerging Scholars STEM Intervention and Summer Bridge Program

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35204  

   Bradford, Brittany ; Beier, Margaret ; McSpedon, Megan ; Wolf, Michael ; Taylor, Matthew ( June 2020 , American Society for Engineering Education)

   STEM graduation rates, cumulative GPAs, and final GPA distributions of years 2016 to 2019 graduates were evaluated for students who participated in Rice University’s STEM intervention (the Rice Emerging Scholars Program, or RESP, which is partly funded through an NSF SSTEM grant), which begins with a pre-freshman STEM summer bridge program. RESP participants (n=89) and a comparison category of students (n=81) were identified as being underprepared for STEM coursework. Outcomes from the rest of the graduating classes were also assessed (i.e., non-comparison, non-RESP students). Incoming high school AP and IB credits were a moderate predictor of cumulative graduation GPA. After controlling for test credits, student status predicted cumulative graduation GPA, with higher GPAs in the noncomparison, non-RESP condition. Seventy-two RESP students graduated with a STEM major (81% STEM retention) compared with 62% of comparison students and 87% of non-comparison, non-RESP students. A chi-square test found a significant difference in favor of higher STEM retention among RESP students than the comparison students. Of RESP STEM graduates, 94% graduated with at least a B- GPA, compared with 86% of the comparison students, and 97% of the non-comparison, non-RESP students. A chi-square test approached significance in favor of more B- and above GPAs among RESP students than the comparison students. Overall, we found that high school preparation predicted STEM students’ graduation GPAs. Further, although RESP participation did not predict the cumulative GPAs of STEM majors, the program may: 1) improve STEM degree persistence and 2) ensure that more of the program’s STEM graduates achieve at least a B- cumulative graduation GPA. The number of RESP and comparison students is relatively small, yet these findings nevertheless offer preliminary evidence that the intervention may be effective at improving STEM outcomes for students who would otherwise struggle the most with their coursework. As more students graduate from the university, we will be able to make stronger conclusions about the effectiveness of RESP in improving outcomes of underprepared STEM students. 

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2. LSAMP Bridges to the Doctorate: Preparing Future Minority Ph.D. Researchers through a Holistic Graduate Student Development Model

   Gloster, C. ; McCullough, M. ; Gowdy, G. ; Bigsby, S. ; Whittington, D. ; Johnson-Taylor, J. ( June 2023 , ASEE annual conference proceedings)

   The importance of diversifying the national STEM workforce is well-established in the literature (Marrongelle, 2018). This need extends to graduate education in the STEM fields, leading N.C. A&T to invest considerably in graduate education and wraparound support initiatives that help graduate students build science identity and competencies for careers both within and beyond academia. The NSF-funded Bridges to the Doctorate project will integrate culturally reflective mentoring and professional development specifically designed for Black, Latinx, and Native American Ph.D. students. This holistic, graduate student development model includes academic and professional skill-building for STEM careers alongside targeted support for pursuing fellowship opportunities. This paper discusses the planned mentoring approach for the aforementioned program and previous approaches to mentoring graduate students used at N.C. A&T. The BD Fellows program will support formal and informal mentoring relationships, as mentoring contributes towards retention in STEM graduate programs (Ragins, 2007). BD Fellows will participate in monthly one-hour seminars on how to identify, establish, and maintain informal mentoring relationships (Schwartz et al., 2018; Parnes et al., 2020), while STEM faculty will attend seminars on leveraging their social networks as vital sources of mentorship for the BD Fellows. Using a multi-pronged collaborative approach, this model integrates the evidence-based domains of self-efficacy (Laurencelle & Scanlan, 2018; Lent et al., 1994; Lent et al., 2008), science/research identity (Lent et al., 2015; Zimmerman, 2000), and social cognitive career theory (Lent et al., 2005; Lent and Brown, 2006) to recruit, enroll, and graduate LSAMP Fellows with STEM doctoral degrees. Guided by the theories, the following questions will be addressed: (1) To what extent is culturally reflective mentoring identified as a critical driver of B2D Fellows’ success? (2) To what extent are the program’s training components fostering increases in B2D Fellow’s self-efficacy, competency, and science identity? (3) What is the strength of the correlation between participation in the program training components, mentoring activities, and persistence in graduate school? (4) To what extent does the perceived importance of self-efficacy, competency, and science identity differ by race/ethnicity and gender? These data will be analyzed using both formative and summative assessments of program outcomes. Quantitative data will include pre-, post-, and exit surveys. Qualitative data will assess the impact of mentoring and program support. This study will be guided by established protocols that have been approved by the N.C. A&T IRB. It is anticipated that our BD Fellows program will significantly impact the retention and graduation rates of underrepresented minority STEM graduate students in our doctoral programs, thus producing a diverse workforce of STEM professionals. Materials from the program recruiting cycle, mentoring workshops, and the structured fellowship application process will be disseminated freely to other LSAMP and minority-serving institutions across the country. Strategies and outcomes of this project will be published in peer-reviewed journals and shared in conference proceedings. 

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3. Social determinants of health predict health outcomes following pediatric allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant

   https://doi.org/10.1002/pbc.30892  

   Klages, Kimberly L. ; Schwartz, Laura E. ; Crabtree, Endia J. Santee ; Brokamp, Cole ; Rasnick, Erika ; Dandoy, Christopher E. ; Davies, Stella M. ; Pai, Ahna L. H. ( February 2024 , Pediatric Blood & Cancer)

   Pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) is an intensive medical procedure that places substantial financial and logistical burdens on families and is associated with significant health risks, such as graft‐versus‐host disease (GVHD), and infections. The influence of the social determinants of health (SDoH) on outcomes following pediatric HCT is understudied. This study aimed to examine whether SDoH predicts outcomes following pediatric HCT.

   Data were collected from 84 children who received HCT (M_age = 5.8 years, SD = 3.7) and their primary caregiver. Detailed demographic information was collected from caregivers at baseline, and child health information was extracted from the electronic medical records. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the association between SDoH and health outcomes within a 24‐month period following pediatric HCT.

   After controlling for malignancy as reason for transplant and donor type, lower family income predicted the incidence of chronic GVHD. Neighborhood deprivation, total family income, public health insurance, caregiver relationship status, caregiver educational attainment, and perceived family financial difficulties did not predict acute GVHD or the number of infections.

   Total family income is a simple family indicator of SDoH that predicts chronic GVHD after pediatric allogeneic HCT. These findings provide further support for the importance of screening of child and family SDoH risks to ensure that fundamental needs can be met to mitigate potential health disparities for up to 2 years following pediatric HCT.

    

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4. The Impact of Participating in College-Run STEM Clubs and Programs on Students’ STEM Career Aspirations

   https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221086445  

   Kitchen, Joseph A. ; Chen, Chen ; Sonnert, Gerhard ; Sadler, Philip ( May 2022 , Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education)

   The United States continues to invest considerable resources into developing the next generation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) talent. Efforts to shore up interest in pursuing STEM careers span decades and have increasingly focused on boosting interest among diverse student populations. Policymakers have called for engaging students in a greater STEM ecology of support that extends beyond the traditional classroom environment to increase student STEM career interest. Yet, few robust studies exist exploring the efficacy of many programmatic efforts and initiatives outside the regular curriculum intended to foster STEM interest. To maximize STEM education investments, promote wise policies, and help achieve the aim of creating STEM learning ecosystems that benefit diverse student populations and meet the nation’s STEM goals, it is crucial to examine the effectiveness of these kinds of STEM education initiatives in promoting STEM career aspirations.

   The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine the impact of one popular, yet understudied, STEM education initiative on students’ STEM career aspirations: participation in a university- or college-run STEM club or program activity (CPA) during high school. Specifically, we studied whether participation in a college-run STEM CPA at a postsecondary institution during high school was related to college-going students’ STEM career aspirations, and we examined whether that relationship differed depending on student characteristics and prior STEM interests.

   We conducted a quasi-experimental investigation to explore the impact of participation in university- or college-run STEM CPAs on college-going students’ STEM career aspirations. We administered a retrospective cohort survey to students at 27 colleges and universities nationwide resulting in a sample of 15,847 respondents. An inverse probability of treatment weighted logistic regression model with a robust set of controls was computed to estimate the odds of expressing STEM career aspirations among those who participated in college-run STEM CPAs compared with the odds expressed among students who did not participate. Our weighting accounted for self-selection effects.

   Quasi-experimental modeling results indicated that participation in university- or college-run STEM CPAs had a significant impact on the odds that college-going students would express STEM career aspirations relative to students who did not participate. The odds of expressing interest in a STEM career among participants in STEM CPAs were 1.49 times those of the control group. Robustness checks confirmed our results. The result held true for students whether or not they expressed interest in STEM careers prior to participation in STEM CPAs, and it held true across a diverse range of student characteristics (e.g., race, parental education, gender, standardized test scores, and family/school encouragement).

   Results suggest that university- and college-run STEM CPAs play an important role in the STEM education ecology, serving the national goal of expanding the pool of college-going students who aspire to STEM careers. Moreover, results showed that participation in university- and college-run STEM CPAs during high school is equally effective across diverse student characteristics. Policymakers, educators, and those charged with making investment decisions in STEM education should seriously consider university- and college-run STEM CPAs as a promising vehicle to promote diverse students’ STEM career aspirations in the broader STEM learning ecosystem and as an important complement to other STEM learning environments.

    

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5. Exploring the Intersectional Development of Computer Science Identities in Young Latinas

   https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221103932  

   Rawhiya Jacob, Sharin ; Montoya, Jonathan ; Warschauer, Mark ( May 2022 , Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education)

   Background: There has been a dearth of research on intersectional identities in STEM, including the fields of computing and engineering. In computing education research, much work has been done on broadening participation, but there has been little investigation into how the field of computer science (CS) presents opportunities for students with strong intersectional identities. This study explores the strengths and connections among the unique identities and the symbiotic relationships that elementary Latina students hold in CS identity attainment. Purpose: The aim of this article is to better understand how predominantly low-income, multilingual Latina students experience identity development through the lens of diverse group membership. We examine how young Latinas, through their participation in a yearlong culturally and linguistically responsive CS curriculum, leverage their intersecting identities to rewrite the formula of what a computer scientist is and can be, leaving space to include and invite other strong identities as well. Research Design: An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was used that analyzed data from predominantly low-income, multilingual Latinas in upper elementary grades, including pre- and post-CS identity surveys (N = 50) delivered before and after implementation of the curriculum, and eight individual semi-structured student interviews. Findings: We found that Latina students developed significantly stronger identification with the field of CS from the beginning to the end of the school year with regard to their experiences with CS, perception of themselves as computer scientists, family support for CS and school, and friend support for CS and school. Interviews revealed that perception of their CS ability greatly influenced identification with CS and that girls’ self-perceptions stemmed from their school, cultural, and home learning environments. Conclusion: Our results highlight the wealth of resources that Latinas bring to the classroom through their home- and community-based assets, which are characterized by intersecting group membership. Students did not report on the intersection between language and CS identity development, which warrants further investigation. 

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