The science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce contributes to
the U.S. economy by supporting 67% of jobs and 69% of the gross domestic product [1].
Currently, there is an increased demand for engineering and computer science (E/CS)
professionals, particularly those from underrepresented (e.g., gender, racial, ethnic) and
underserved (socio-economic, geographically isolated) groups who bring diversity of thought
and experience to the national E/CS workforce [2]. Correspondingly, educational institutions are
called upon to develop capabilities to attract, engage, and retain students from these diverse
backgrounds in E/CS programs of study.
To encourage and enable diverse students to opt into and persist within E/CS programs of
study, there is a critical need to engage students in supportive and enriching opportunities from
which to learn and grow. The importance of student engagement for promoting student growth
and development has been researched to such an extent that its utility is widely agreed upon [5].
Importantly, it has been shown that both academic and extracurricular aspects of a student’s
learning processes are characterized by engagement [6]. High Impact Educational Practices
(HIP) provide useful opportunities for deep student engagement and, thus, positively influence
student retention and persistence [4]. Kuh [3] identified eleven curricular and extracurricular HIP
(i.e., collaborative assignments and projects, common intellectual experiences, eportfolios, first
year seminars and experiences, global learning and study abroad, internships, learning
communities, senior culminating experiences, service and community-based learning,
undergraduate research, and writing intensive courses). In computer science and engineering
education fields, however, the extent to which HIP affects persistence and retention has not been
fully investigated. This project aims to examine E/CS undergraduate student engagement in HIP
and to understand the factors that contribute to positive engagement experiences.
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Investigating the impact of peer supplemental instruction on underprepared and historically underserved students in introductory STEM courses
Supplemental instruction (SI) is a well-established mode of direct academic support, used in a wide variety of courses. Some reports have indicated that SI and similar peer-led academic support models particularly benefit students identifying with historically underserved racial/ethnic groups in STEM. However, these studies have not explicitly examined the role of prior academic experiences, an important consideration in college success. We report on the impact of a modified SI model, Peer Supplemental Instruction (PSI), on student success in introductory STEM courses at a diverse access institution. This study focuses on PSI’s impact on the academic performance of students identifying with historically underserved racial/ethnic groups, while also considering the effects of prior academic experiences.
Data were aggregated for nine courses over five semesters to produce a robust data set (
The data presented here suggest that PSI particularly benefitted underprepared students in their introductory STEM courses. Since students identifying with historically underserved racial/ethnic groups have traditionally had inequitable K–12 educational experiences, they enter college less prepared on average, and thus particularly benefit from PSI. PSI, in conjunction with additional strategies, may be a useful tool to help rectify the results of systemic educational inequities for students identifying with historically underserved racial/ethnic groups.
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10373099
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Science + Business Media
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of STEM Education
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2196-7822
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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African Americans, Latinos/Latinas, and other traditionally underserved ethnic/racial groups are needed for the next generation of engineers, scientists, and STEM educators. Women of color (WOC), in particular, represent a tremendous untapped human capital that could further provide a much-needed diversity of perspective essential to sustain technological advantages and to promote positive academic climate. Recently engineering educators have questioned the STEM community commitment towards increasing the participation of WOC. Indeed, national reports of domestic students studying and completing STEM degrees show marginal improvement in broadening participation with significant lag in engineering, despite the known benefits of diversity. Therefore, more must be done by the STEM community to attract and retain WOC. For students of color, campus climate issues around race, class, and gender are critical components shaping their higher education learning environment. Research suggests hostile campus climates are associated with students of color leaving STEM fields before graduating. Such barriers can be more pronounced for WOC who often experience a “double bind” of race and gender marginalization when navigating the STEM culture. Therefore, it is important that educators understand experiences of WOC and what is needed to improve students’ experiences in order to minimize the performance gap in key indicators (e.g., retention, achievement, and persistence). We seek to address this STEM need through the guiding research question: “How does the double bind of race and gender impact the experience of women of color in engineering?” The data reported here is part of a larger, sequential mixed-methods study that is informed by the Womanist and intersectionality theoretical frameworks. For the first time, we introduce the Womanist Identity Attitude scale to engineering education research, which provides an efficient way to understand gender and racial identity development of WOC along with the intersection of identities. Intersectionality provides a means to produce scholarship that investigates the connection between social identity dimensions and educational conditions. Social identity models that adhere to intersectionality concepts acknowledge that multiple oppressed identities have a cumulative, not additive, impact. Although intersectionality is used to understand the experiences of students of color in higher education, few engineering education studies apply an intersectionality framework, particularly for WOC. After a short pilot study, we anticipate the survey results will generate three outcomes. First, the survey results will show what intersecting identities most impact the experience of WOC in engineering. Second, interview question and potential themes will be created by grouping results into clusters of intersectionality types or exemplars of intersecting identities. Finally, we will generate strategies to overcome the challenge of the double bind for WOC in engineering by examining the context and scope of intersecting identities emphasized by participants in the survey to. Overall, the results presented here will provide the foundation for a larger study that will lead to a deeper understanding of the challenges WOC face in the engineering culture and expose areas to improve inclusion efforts that target WOC.more » « less
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