An official website of the United States government
The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 with the goal of enhancing the ability of academically talented but underprepared students coming from low-income backgrounds to successfully graduate with engineering degrees. The Consortium takes its name from the practice of redshirting in college athletics, with the idea of providing an extra year and support to help promising engineering students complete a bachelor’s degree. The Consortium builds on the success of three existing “academic redshirt” programs and expands the model to three new schools. The Existing Redshirt Institutions (ERIs) help mentor and train the new Student Success Partners (SSP), and SSPs contribute their unique expertise to help ERIs improve existing redshirt programs. The redshirt model is comprised of seven main programmatic components aimed at improving the engagement, retention, and graduation of students underrepresented in engineering. These components include: “intrusive” academic advising and support services, an intensive first-year academic curriculum, community-building (including pre-matriculation summer programs), career awareness and vision, faculty mentorship, NSF S-STEM scholarships, and second-year support. Successful implementation of these activities is intended to produce two main long-term outcomes: a six-year graduation rate of 60%-75% for redshirt students, and increased rates of enrollment and graduation of Pell-eligible, URM, and women students in engineering at participating universities. In the first year of the grant (AY 16-17), SSPs developed their own redshirt programs, hired and trained staff, and got their programs off the ground. ERIs implemented faculty mentorship programs and expanded support to redshirt students into their sophomore year. In the second year (AY 17-18), redshirt programs were expanded at the ERIs while SSPs welcomed their first cohorts of redshirt students. This Work in Progress paper describes the redshirt programs at each of the six Consortium institutions, identifying distinctions between them in addition to highlighting common elements. First-year assessment results are presented for the ERIs based on student surveys, performance, and retention outcomes. Ongoing research into faculty experiences is investigating how participation as mentors for redshirt students changes faculty mindsets and instructional practices. Ongoing research into student experiences is investigating how the varied curricula, advising, and cohort models used across the six institutions influence student retention and sense of identity as engineering students.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on February 8, 2026
Deployment of intrusive advising methods to transform student retention and success outcomes in the STEM pathway
Intrusive advising is a type of student advising characterized as a highly interactive and proactive student-centered process. Intrusive advising, like traditional advising frameworks such as developmental and prescriptive advising, is essential for identifying and designing remediation approaches to ensure student success and retention. Intrusive advising involves deliberately administrating Tinto’s academic and social integration objectives. Data indicates that intrusive advising is an effective strategy for improving student undergraduate success and academic retention rates. Intrusive advising may also advance research training and career development goals. Most of the data on this topic focuses on the first two years of college. More data is needed to explore the impact of intrusive advising on the last two years of college to understand better how intrusive advising mediates persistence, graduation, and entry into graduate school, professional school, or the job market. Further, more targeted information is needed to explore how intrusive advising improves student progression and degree completion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors. The current article has significant implications for student advising policy and practice. Intrusive advising methods may be essential for minority-serving institutions with retention rates well below the national average.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2232563
- PAR ID:
- 10585415
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of Science and Research
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2319-7064
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 262
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- intrusive advising retention undergraduate research proactive academic achievement
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Supported by significant public spending and often with multiple identities that diversify universities, student service member/veteran (SSM/V) success in higher education is critical. Still, more quantitative evidence is needed to better understand how SSM/V university experiences are unique compared to those of their adult, non-military student peers. Using survey data (n=1,255) and field theory, this research brief focuses on how military experience associates with undergraduate characteristics and perspectives linked to postsecondary academic success. After controlling for age and other important covariates, results indicate that student military experience significantly correlates with first-generation status; lower high school but higher college grades; higher work volition; student disability; less financial stress; and decreased feelings of campus and academic major belonging.more » « less
-
Over the years, researchers have found that student engagement facilitates desired academic success outcomes for college undergraduate students. Much research on student engagement has focused on academic tasks and classroom context. High impact engagement practices (HIEP) have been shown to be effective for undergraduate student academic success. However, less is known about the effects of HIEP specifically on engineering and computer science (E/CS) student outcomes. Given the high attrition rates for E/CS students, student involvement in HIEP could be effective in improving student outcomes for E/CS students, including those from various underrepresented groups. More generally, student participation in specific HIEP activities has been shown to shape their everyday experiences in school, both academically and socially. Hence, the primary goal of this study is to examine the factors that predict academic success in E/CS using multiple regression analysis. Specifically, this study seeks to understand the effects of high impact engagement practices (HIEP), coursework enjoyability, confidence at completing a degree on academic success of the underrepresented and nontraditional E/CS students. We used exploratory factor analyses to derive “academic success” variable from five items that sought to measure how students persevere to attain academic goals. A secondary goal of the present study is to address the gap in research literature concerning how participation in HIEP affects student persistence and success in E/CS degree programs. Our research team developed and administered an online survey to investigate and identify factors that affect participation in HIEP among underrepresented and nontraditional E/CS students. Respondents (N = 531) were students enrolled in two land grant universities in the Western U.S. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the proportion of the variation in the dependent variable (academic success) explained by the independent variables (i.e., high impact engagement practice (HIEP), coursework enjoyability, and confidence at completing a degree). We hypothesized that (1) high impact engagement practices will predict academic success; (2) coursework enjoyability will predict academic success; and (3) confidence at completing a degree will predict academic success. Results showed that the multiple regression model statistically predicted academic success , F(3, 270) = 33.064, p = .001, adjusted R2 = .27. This results indicate that there is a linear relationship in the population and the multiple regression model is a good fit for the data. Further, findings show that confidence at completing a degree is significantly predictive of academic success. In addition, coursework enjoyability is a strong predictor of academic success. Specifically, the result shows that an increase in high impact engagement activity is associated with an increase in students’ academic success. In sum, these findings suggest that student participation in High Impact Engagement Practices might improve academic success and course retention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.more » « less
-
Female, Black, Latinx, Native American, low-income, and rural students remain underrepresented among computer science undergraduate degree recipients. Along with student, family, and secondary school characteristics, college organizational climate, curricula, and instructional practices shape undergraduates’ experiences that foster persistence until graduation. Our quasi-experimental project, Improving the Persistence and Success of Students from Underrepresented Populations in Computer Science (I-PASS), is designed to augment students’ persistence until they earn their computer science degree. Drawing on prior research, including Tinto's model of effective institutional actions for retention, I-PASS Scholars—all low-income, female and/or members of underserved demographics groups— receive a four-year scholarship; mentoring, tutoring, advising; and opportunities to integrate into the academic and social life of the campus. Students’ written reflections and attitude surveys suggest I-PASS's components foster their retention by, among other mechanisms, enhancing their computer science identity development and sense of belonging in the major.more » « less
-
Despite efforts to attract and retain more students in engineering and computer science — particularly women and students from underrepresented groups — diversity within these educational programs and the technical workforce remains stubbornly low. Research shows that undergraduate retention, persistence, and success in college is affected by several factors, including sense of belonging, task value, positive student-faculty interactions, school connectedness, and student engagement [1], [2]. Kuh [1] found that improvement in persistence, performance, and graduation for students in college were correlated to students’ level of participation in particular activities known as high impact educational practices (HIEP). HIEP include, among others, culminating experiences, learning communities, service learning, study abroad, and undergraduate research; Kuh [1] concluded that these activities may be effective at promoting overall student success. Kuh [1] and others [3] further hypothesized that participation in HIEP may especially benefit students from non-majority groups. Whether and how engineering and computer science students benefit from participating in HIEP and whether students from non-majority groups have access to HIEP activities, however, remain as questions to investigate. In this project, we examine engineering and computer science student participation in HIEP at two public land grant institutions. In this study, we seek to understand how and why students participate in HIEP and how participation affects their persistence and success in engineering and computer science majors. Set within the rural, public land grant university context, this study conceptualizes diversity in a broad sense and includes women, members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, first generation college students, adult learners, and nontraditional student as groups contributing to the diversity of academic programs and the technical workforce.more » « less
