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1. NSF S-STEM EPIC Scholarship Program

   Atwood, Sara A; DeGoede, Kurt (January 2020, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Results will be presented from a 5-year NSF S-STEM scholarship program for academically talented women in engineering with financial need. Elizabethtown College’s Engineering Practices with Impact Cohort (EPIC) Scholarship program was launched with an NSF S-STEM grant awarded in 2013. The program developed a pathway for academically talented and financially needy women interested in engineering to successfully enter the STEM workforce. The program targeted three critical stages: 1) recruiting talented women into the ABET-accredited engineering program and forming a cohort of scholars,  2) leveraging and expanding existing high impact practices (including an established matriculation program, living-learning community, collaborative learning model, focused mentoring, and undergraduate research) to support women scholars during their college experience, and 3) mentoring scholars as they transitioned to the STEM workforce or graduate programs. The goals of the scholarship program were to increase the number and percent of women entering engineering at our institution and to increase the graduation/employment rate of EPIC scholars beyond that of current engineering students and beyond that of national levels for women engineers.   At the end of this grant, we have roughly doubled the number of women (22.7%) and underrepresented minority students (14%) in the engineering program. This is comparable to the 2016 national average of 20.9% women and 20.6% underrepresented minority bachelor's graduates in engineering. We have also remained at a consistently high level of enrollment and retention of low-income (18.6% Pell-eligible) and first-generation college students (61%). 83% of the scholars have been retained in the engineering program or have graduated with an engineering degree, which is above the institutional and national average. The remaining scholars transferred to another major but have been retained at the institution. All of the scholars participated in a living-learning community, tutoring, focused mentoring, and a women engineers club. Almost all participated in a pre-matriculation program. 17% of the scholars additionally had an undergraduate research experience and 28% studied abroad. 100% of the scholars had engineering workforce jobs or graduate school acceptances at the time of graduation. This program successfully increased the population of underrepresented minority, low-income, and first-generation women entering the engineering workforce.  

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2. Improving Academic Self-Concept and STEM Identity Through a Research Immersion: Pathways to STEM Summer Program

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.674817  

   Betz, Amy R.; King, Brenee; Grauer, Bette; Montelone, Beth; Wiley, Zelia; Thurston, Linda (July 2021, Frontiers in Education)

   null (Ed.)

   Undergraduate research opportunities have been demonstrated to promote recruitment, retention, and inclusion of students from underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines. The opportunity to engage in hands-on, discovery-based activities as part of a community helps students develop a strong self-identity in STEM and strengthens their self-efficacy in what can otherwise be daunting fields. Kansas State University has developed an array of undergraduate research opportunities, both in the academic year and summer, and has established a management infrastructure around these programs. The Graduate School, which hosts its own Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program aimed at URM and first-generation college students, coordinates the leadership of the other grant-funded programs, and conducts a series of enrichment and networking activities for students from all the programs. These include professional development as well as primarily social sessions. The Kansas LSAMP, led by Kansas State University, created a summer program aimed at under-represented minority community college students enrolled in STEM fields to recruit them into research opportunities at K-State. There has been strong interest in the program, which incorporated university experience elements in addition to an introduction to STEM research and the four-year university. In the 5 years since the program’s inception, cohorts of nine to fourteen students came to K-State each year for eight-week experiences and took part in both cohort-based sessions and individual mentored research experiences. The two-fold focus of this program, Research Immersion: Pathways to STEM, has resulted in the majority of the students presenting a poster at a national conference and transferring to a STEM major at a four-year institution. Survey results showed that the program was successful at improving STEM identity and academic self-concepts. Qualitative feedback suggested that the two parts of the program worked together to increase interest and self confidence in STEM majors but also ensured that students connect with other students and felt comfortable in the transition to a 4-year institution. 

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3. Retention Focused S-STEM Support Program

   Hensel, Robin; Morris, Melissa; Dygert, Joseph (September 2019, AAAS/NSF 2019 S-STEM Symposium)

   POSTER. Presented at the Symposium (9/12/2019) Abstract: The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. AcES was established in 2012 and has been supported via NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 since 2016. The 2016, 2017, and 2018 cohorts consist of 12, 20, and 22 students, respectively. Five S-STEM supported scholarships were awarded to the 2016 cohort, seven scholarships were awarded to students from the 2017 cohort, and six scholarships were awarded to students from the 2018 cohort. AcES students participate in a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall semester course focused on professional development, and a common spring semester course emphasizing the role of engineers in societal development. Starting with the summer bridge experience, and continuing until graduation, students are immersed in curricular and co-curricular activities with the goals of fostering feelings of institutional inclusion and belonging in engineering, providing academic support and student success skills, and professional development. The aforementioned goals are achieved by providing (1) opportunities for faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support, and student success education in areas such as time management and study skills, and (3) facilitated career and major exploration. Four research questions are being examined, (1) What is the relationship between participation in the AcES program and participants’ academic success?, (2) What aspects of the AcES program most significantly impact participants’ success in engineering, (3) How do AcES students seek to overcome challenges in studying engineering, and (4) What is the longitudinal impact of the AcES program in terms of motivation, perceptions, feelings of inclusion, outcome expectations of the participants and retention? Students enrolled in the AcES program participate in the GRIT, LAESE, and MSLQ surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews at the start and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, general self-efficacy, engineering self-efficacy, test anxiety, math outcome efficacy, intrinsic value of learning, inclusion, career expectations, and coping efficacy. Focus group and interview responses are analyzed in order to answer research questions 2, 3, and 4. Survey responses are analyzed to answer research question 4, and institutional data such as GPA is used to answer research question 1. An analysis of the 2017 AcES cohort survey responses produced a surprising result. When the responses of AcES students who retained were compared to the responses of AcES students who left engineering, those who left engineering had higher baseline values of GRIT, career expectations, engineering self-efficacy, and math outcome efficacy than those students who retained. A preliminary analysis of the 2016, 2017, and 2018 focus group and one-on-one interview responses indicates that the Engineering Learning Center, tutors, organized out of class experiences, first-year seminar, the AcES cohort, the AcES summer bridge, the AcES program, AcES Faculty/Staff, AcES guest lecturers, and FEP faculty/Staff are viewed as valuable by students and cited with contributing to their success in engineering. It is also evident that AcES students seek help from peers, seek help from tutors, use online resources, and attend office hours to overcome their challenges in studying engineering. 

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4. Retention-focused, S-STEM Supported Program

   Morris, Melissa; Hensel, Robin; Dygert, Joseph (January 2019, ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   This work in progress paper discusses XXX, an NSF S-STEM supported program, which employs known best practices to support and retain underrepresented students in engineering through graduation. The goal is to graduate more students from underrepresented populations in an effort to ultimately diversity the engineering workforce. This paper describes this program’s unique implementation of a specific subset of retention best practices, such as facilitating (1) the development of both a feeling of institutional inclusion and engineering identity by providing opportunities for faculty-student and student-student interaction as well as major and career exploration, (2) academic support, including support for the development of broader success skills, such as time management, and (3) professional development. These opportunities are embedded in an organized, cohort-based, program consisting of: (1) a brief summer bridge program, (2) a common fall professional development course, and (3) a common spring course exploring the role of engineering in societal development. Throughout its implementation, the program faced and addressed challenges related to recruitment as well as program length and cost. Now, in its eighth year, three with S-STEM funding, an analysis of program data provides evidence of increased retention of the targeted populations in engineering to the second year, but only a small positive effect on overall retention. Results of investigations of why students leave, lessons learned through the development, implementation, and assessment of this program, and suggested actions for continued progress in increasing retention of underrepresented populations are presented. 

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5. Researching Experiences in a Cohort Program to Influence Self-Efficacy

   https://doi.org/10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Wood  

   Wood, Laura A.; Little, Angela; Sawtelle, Vashti (January 2019, 2018 Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings)

   There remains a great deal of research to do on improving the transfer experience for students transitioning from two-year colleges to four-year colleges. In this paper, we describe data collected from interviewing current students at a large Midwestern research university who are members of a cohort program which will be adapted for transfer students to join. This cohort program is designed to give students – intending to major in the natural sciences, and predominantly from underrepresented backgrounds – support in academics, research experiences, and the social experience of integrating into the university. The interview protocol elicited discussion of these students' self-efficacy to complete their science degrees, navigate the academic requirements, and continue in their chosen life paths, specifically drawing out mastery, vicarious learning, and social persuasion experiences. We will discuss how student experience in the cohort program may support developing self-efficacy in the transfer process. 

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