Need/Motivation (e.g., goals, gaps in knowledge)
The ESTEEM implemented a STEM building capacity project through students’ early access to a sustainable and innovative STEM Stepping Stones, called Micro-Internships (MI). The goal is to reap key benefits of a full-length internship and undergraduate research experiences in an abbreviated format, including access, success, degree completion, transfer, and recruiting and retaining more Latinx and underrepresented students into the STEM workforce. The MIs are designed with the goals to provide opportunities for students at a community college and HSI, with authentic STEM research and applied learning experiences (ALE), support for appropriate STEM pathway/career, preparation and confidence to succeed in STEM and engage in summer long REUs, and with improved outcomes. The MI projects are accessible early to more students and build momentum to better overcome critical obstacles to success. The MIs are shorter, flexibly scheduled throughout the year, easily accessible, and participation in multiple MI is encouraged. ESTEEM also establishes a sustainable and collaborative model, working with partners from BSCS Science Education, for MI’s mentor, training, compliance, and building capacity, with shared values and practices to maximize the improvement of student outcomes.
New Knowledge (e.g., hypothesis, research questions)
Research indicates that REU/internship experiences can be particularly powerful for students from Latinx and underrepresented groups in STEM. However, those experiences are difficult to access for many HSI-community college students (85% of our students hold off-campus jobs), and lack of confidence is a barrier for a majority of our students. The gap between those who can and those who cannot is the “internship access gap.” This project is at a central California Community College (CCC) and HSI, the only affordable post-secondary option in a region serving a historically underrepresented population in STEM, including 75% Hispanic, and 87% have not completed college. MI is designed to reduce inequalities inherent in the internship paradigm by providing access to professional and research skills for those underserved students. The MI has been designed to reduce barriers by offering: shorter duration (25 contact hours); flexible timing (one week to once a week over many weeks); open access/large group; and proximal location (on-campus). MI mentors participate in week-long summer workshops and ongoing monthly community of practice with the goal of co-constructing a shared vision, engaging in conversations about pedagogy and learning, and sustaining the MI program going forward.
Approach (e.g., objectives/specific aims, research methodologies, and analysis)
Research Question and Methodology: We want to know: How does participation in a micro-internship affect students’ interest and confidence to pursue STEM? We used a mixed-methods design triangulating quantitative Likert-style survey data with interpretive coding of open-responses to reveal themes in students’ motivations, attitudes toward STEM, and confidence. Participants: The study sampled students enrolled either part-time or full-time at the community college. Although each MI was classified within STEM, they were open to any interested student in any major. Demographically, participants self-identified as 70% Hispanic/Latinx, 13% Mixed-Race, and 42 female. Instrument: Student surveys were developed from two previously validated instruments that examine the impact of the MI intervention on student interest in STEM careers and pursuing internships/REUs. Also, the pre- and post (every e months to assess longitudinal outcomes) -surveys included relevant open response prompts. The surveys collected students’ demographics; interest, confidence, and motivation in pursuing a career in STEM; perceived obstacles; and past experiences with internships and MIs. 171 students responded to the pre-survey at the time of submission.
Outcomes (e.g., preliminary findings, accomplishments to date)
Because we just finished year 1, we lack at this time longitudinal data to reveal if student confidence is maintained over time and whether or not students are more likely to (i) enroll in more internships, (ii) transfer to a four-year university, or (iii) shorten the time it takes for degree attainment. For short term outcomes, students significantly Increased their confidence to continue pursuing opportunities to develop within the STEM pipeline, including full-length internships, completing STEM degrees, and applying for jobs in STEM. For example, using a 2-tailed t-test we compared means before and after the MI experience. 15 out of 16 questions that showed improvement in scores were related to student confidence to pursue STEM or perceived enjoyment of a STEM career. Finding from the free-response questions, showed that the majority of students reported enrolling in the MI to gain knowledge and experience. After the MI, 66% of students reported having gained valuable knowledge and experience, and 35% of students spoke about gaining confidence and/or momentum to pursue STEM as a career.
Broader Impacts (e.g., the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM; development of a diverse STEM workforce, enhanced infrastructure for research and education)
The ESTEEM project has the potential for a transformational impact on STEM undergraduate education’s access and success for underrepresented and Latinx community college students, as well as for STEM capacity building at Hartnell College, a CCC and HSI, for students, faculty, professionals, and processes that foster research in STEM and education. Through sharing and transfer abilities of the ESTEEM model to similar institutions, the project has the potential to change the way students are served at an early and critical stage of their higher education experience at CCC, where one in every five community college student in the nation attends a CCC, over 67% of CCC students identify themselves with ethnic backgrounds that are not White, and 40 to 50% of University of California and California State University graduates in STEM started at a CCC, thus making it a key leverage point for recruiting and retaining a more diverse STEM workforce.
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Pathways of opportunity in STEM: comparative investigation of degree attainment across different demographic groups at a large research institution
We used an opportunity gap framework to analyze the pathways through which students enter into and depart from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees in an R1 higher education institution and to better understand the demographic disparities in STEM degree attainment.
We found disparities in 6-year STEM graduation rates on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity, and parental education level. Using mediation analysis, we showed that the gender disparity in STEM degree attainment was explained by disparities in aspiration: a gender disparity in students’ intent to pursue STEM at the beginning of college; women were less likely to graduate with STEM degrees because they were less likely to intend to pursue STEM degrees. However, disparities in STEM degree attainment across race/ethnicities and parental education level were largely explained by disparities in attrition: persons excluded because of their ethnicity or race (PEERs) and first generation students were less likely to graduate with STEM degrees due to fewer academic opportunities provided prior to college (estimated using college entrance exams scores) and more academic challenges during college as captured by first year GPAs.
Our results reinforce the idea that patterns of departure from STEM pathways differ among marginalized groups. To promote and retain students in STEM, it is critical that we understand these differing patterns and consider structural efforts to support students at different stages in their education.
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10426664
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Science + Business Media
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of STEM Education
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2196-7822
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Background Women and under-represented minority (URM) students continue to be under-represented in STEM and earn the lowest proportion of undergraduate engineering degrees. We employed a mixed methods research approach grounded in social capital theory to investigate
when they first consider pursuing engineering as a college degree major,who influences this decision, andhow the influence occurs. First, we surveyed 2186 first-year undergraduate students entering engineering programs at 11 universities in the U.S. during the fall of 2014. Next, we interviewed a subsample of 55 women and URM students.Results Survey findings indicated that women were more likely than men to consider pursuing engineering while in high school, before admission into college, or while in college rather than considering it earlier in their education. Black and Latinx students were more likely than white students to consider pursuing engineering after high school. In addition, Black and Latinx students were more likely than white students to identify a school counselor (rather than a family member) as having the most influence on their engineering academic and career decisions. In interviews, women and URM students provided examples of influential people who connected their aptitude and enthusiasm for mathematics, science, and problem-solving to engineering, explained the benefits of being an engineer, and provided advice about engineering academic and career pathways.
Conclusions Encouraging earlier consideration of engineering majors, such as during middle school, could allow women and URM students time to take requisite courses and take advantage of college preparatory programming. Likewise, universities can engage in intentional efforts to identify women and URM students with engineering interests and provide guidance. Such efforts should also include connecting them with other women and URM students in engineering. In addition, universities should support K-12 and university personnel in offering advice that can influence students’ decision to declare an engineering major, which could help recruit more women and URM students into engineering.
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The COVID-19 pandemic caused extensive disruption to higher education, highlighting the negative impacts of emergency shift to online instruction. As a result, advantages of intentionally designed, online programs in higher education were overshadowed during the pandemic. Furthermore, socioeconomic disparities were exacerbated during the pandemic which extended to STEM undergraduate transfer students, who are more likely to be low-income, from historically underrepresented groups, older, and first generation in their family to attend college. To better understand the impact of the pandemic on STEM undergraduates, including those in an intentionally designed online program, ordinal regression analysis of 352 student survey respondents enrolled in a life sciences major at a large, R1 institution in the United States spring 2020 through fall 2021 was performed. Three student types are compared: on-campus, first-time in college (FTIC); on-campus transfer (OC-TR); and online transfer (ONL-TR) students. The latter group receives all course delivery online, whereas on-campus student groups received predominately in-person course delivery prior to the pandemic. ONL-TR students were over six times less likely to report negative educational impact compared to on-campus students, FTIC and OC-TR, while controlling for parent education, income, gender, race/ethnicity, and GPA. Additional survey items further explored this result and were validated with academic records and thematic analysis of students’ text responses. A pre−/post-pandemic comparison revealed that students maintained a similar course load and GPA, despite increased perceptions of a lower GPA during the pandemic. OC-TR students were over two times more likely to express increased concern related to delayed graduation and higher frequency of feeling stress compared to FTIC and ONL-TR students. Meanwhile, low-income students were more likely to report stressors due to the pandemic’s impact on daily life, independent of student type. Taken together, students in this intentionally designed online program were more resilient to the educational and emotional impacts of the pandemic compared to on-campus students. The differences between student groups warn against generalization of student impacts and suggest further research into the positive role of online learning, not just for delivery of educational content and expanding access, but for academic and emotional stability for different student populations.more » « less
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There is a critical need for more students with engineering and computer science majors to enter into, persist in, and graduate from four-year postsecondary institutions. Increasing the diversity of the workforce by inclusive practices in engineering and science is also a profound identified need. According to national statistics, the largest groups of underrepresented minority students in engineering and science attend U.S. public higher education institutions. Most often, a large proportion of these students come to colleges and universities with unique challenges and needs, and are more likely to be first in their family to attend college. In response to these needs, engineering education researchers and practitioners have developed, implemented and assessed interventions to provide support and help students succeed in college, particularly in their first year. These interventions typically target relatively small cohorts of students and can be managed by a small number of faculty and staff. In this paper, we report on “work in progress” research in a large-scale, first-year engineering and computer science intervention program at a public, comprehensive university using multivariate comparative statistical approaches. Large-scale intervention programs are especially relevant to minority serving institutions that prepare growing numbers of students who are first in their family to attend college and who are also under-resourced, financially. These students most often encounter academic difficulties and come to higher education with challenging experiences and backgrounds. Our studied first-year intervention program, first piloted in 2015, is now in its 5th year of implementation. Its intervention components include: (a) first-year block schedules, (b) project-based introductory engineering and computer science courses, (c) an introduction to mechanics course, which provides students with the foundation needed to succeed in a traditional physics sequence, and (d) peer-led supplemental instruction workshops for calculus, physics and chemistry courses. This intervention study responds to three research questions: (1) What role does the first-year intervention’s components play in students’ persistence in engineering and computer science majors across undergraduate program years? (2) What role do particular pedagogical and cocurricular support structures play in students’ successes? And (3) What role do various student socio-demographic and experiential factors play in the effectiveness of first-year interventions? To address these research questions and therefore determine the formative impact of the firstyear engineering and computer science program on which we are conducting research, we have collected diverse student data including grade point averages, concept inventory scores, and data from a multi-dimensional questionnaire that measures students’ use of support practices across their four to five years in their degree program, and diverse background information necessary to determine the impact of such factors on students’ persistence to degree. Background data includes students’ experiences prior to enrolling in college, their socio-demographic characteristics, and their college social capital throughout their higher education experience. For this research, we compared students who were enrolled in the first-year intervention program to those who were not enrolled in the first-year intervention. We have engaged in cross-sectional 2 data collection from students’ freshman through senior years and employed multivariate statistical analytical techniques on the collected student data. Results of these analyses were interesting and diverse. Generally, in terms of backgrounds, our research indicates that students’ parental education is positively related to their success in engineering and computer science across program years. Likewise, longitudinally (across program years), students’ college social capital predicted their academic success and persistence to degree. With regard to the study’s comparative research of the first-year intervention, our results indicate that students who were enrolled in the first-year intervention program as freshmen continued to use more support practices to assist them in academic success across their degree matriculation compared to students who were not in the first-year program. This suggests that the students continued to recognize the value of such supports as a consequence of having supports required as first-year students. In terms of students’ understanding of scientific or engineering-focused concepts, we found significant impact resulting from student support practices that were academically focused. We also found that enrolling in the first-year intervention was a significant predictor of the time that students spent preparing for classes and ultimately their grade point average, especially in STEM subjects across students’ years in college. In summary, we found that the studied first-year intervention program has longitudinal, positive impacts on students’ success as they navigate through their undergraduate experiences toward engineering and computer science degrees.more » « less
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Background: Even though Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs) make up only 3% of higher education's institutions, they play a pivotal role in producing Black scientists by virtue of the fact that many received either their undergraduate or doctorate degree from a HBCU. HBCUs are credited with providing a more supportive and nurturing environment that thrives on communal mindsets and practices, emphasizing the importance of relationships, offering opportunities for Black students to "see themselves" as part of the academic and social milieu whereas Historically White Institutions (HWIS) are characterized as being hostile and discriminatory. Mentoring is said to be pivotal in the attainment of the PhD. Mentorships have an inherent gatekeeping mechanism, better positioning those who receive effective mentorships while disadvantaging those who do not. It has potential to harm and marginalize when not engaged with deliberate care and a culturally liberative mindset. Mentoring, when not under the thumb of colonizing mindsets, can contribute to more equitable experiences and outcomes for students who hail from AGEP population groups. Literature has indicated that Black students are less likely to have a mentor or be engaged in effective mentorships. The HBCU narrative of supportive environment is consistently told but has scant empirical validation for Black students pursuing STEM doctoral degrees. In fact, the lure of having faculty and peers who look like you is something of an enigma given that even at HBCUs there are limited numbers of Black faculty in STEM. How are same race, same gender mentorships attained when, not unlike their HWIS counterparts, HBCU STEM faculties have a large number of White and Asian men? If the environment is indeed different at HBCUs, is it different for Black STEM doctoral students? Is STEM doctoral mentoring at HBCUs emblematic of anti-Blackness or is it yet another tool used to oppress marginalized students? Theoretical Framework: Anti-black racism and critical capital theory serve as critical theoretical frameworks and were selected because they highlight the ways violence is enacted through taken for granted colonized practices such as mentoring. Fanon understood that thoughts and mindsets are the progenitors of violence and dehumanization is the process through which violence is enacted. Anti-black racism and critical capital theory can be useful in unearthing the structural inequalities that uphold the current system in place for STEM doctoral learning. Research Design: An embedded multiple qualitative case study research project sought to understand the nature and quality of STEM doctoral mentorships at an HBCU. The analysis on the HBCU subcase asked, how are STEM doctoral mentorships understood by Black STEM doctoral students at HBCUs? Black STEM HBCU students were interviewed and completed a mentoring competency assessment survey. In addition STEM doctoral students from three universities also completed the survey. The qualitative data was analyzed using narrative analysis and the survey data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. This project is part of a larger NSF AGEP sponsored research study. Research findings: The findings from this study expose that Black STEM doctoral students at HBCUs have not reached the proverbial Promise Land. In spite of being in a space that is more diverse, they manage to simultaneously be invisible and hypervisible. An unmerited sense of assumed cultural belonging was highlighted with students reporting a lack of selfethnic reflectors in their programs. In many ways the systemic and institutional structures on HBCUs with respect to STEM doctoral programming mirrored the colonial structures more often associated with HWIS. Their culture and cultural-based experiences as domestic students as well as their academic strengths were often not recognized by mentors while that of international students were. Three themes were supported by the data: Conspicuous Absence, Race Still Matters, and Invisibilized Hypervisibility. Implications: Better understanding how STEM doctoral mentoring is facilitated at HBCUs holds the promise of informing a mentoring practice that supports cultural liberation instead of cultural degradation and suppression. It becomes one avenue as the “The Call'' suggests to "confront our own complicity in the colonial enterprise" by holding STEM doctoral mentors and the institutions they represent accountable for socially just mentoring practices. Greater intentionality as well as mandated training informed by the study's results are recommended. HBCU faculty doctoral mentors are challenged to be scholar activists who engage mentoring from an advocacy and accomplice framework. 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