Search for: All records

It is well known that high impact practices such as student learning communities and peer-mentoring, early engagement in research and faculty-student relationship building can have a positive influence on undergraduate student engagement and retention in their chosen field of study. The First2 Network is a Networked Improvement Community comprised of students, faculty, staff and administrators from eight higher education institutions in West Virginia and one in Kentucky, that has, over the past six years, engaged in creating interventions to implement and test these high impact practices with the aim of doubling the graduation rate of first-generation and other underrepresented STEM students. Relying on data collected, mostly from WVU, we see very promising outcomes on the persistence of STEM majors. These results will be shared. However, our data story is incomplete as there is no mechanism to sort data on first-generation status across all universities and colleges in the state. The value of this information and its inclusion in a future state funding formula will be explored. 

In rural West Virginia, the First2 Network aims to improve STEM persistence by including students in creating solutions to STEM attrition. A research program for rising first-year students in STEM majors is discussed here. The authors assessed students’ STEM education and career plans, identity, efficacy, and sense of school of belonging before and after the program. Students’ STEM identity, efficacy, and school belonging improved after participation. 

Nationally, more than half of all college students who declare a major in STEM fields drop out or change their majors in the first two years of post-secondary education.  Among first-generation college students in West Virginia this number may approach 70%.    The First2 STEM Success Network, an NSF INCLUDES Alliance, is a cross-sector effort aimed at improving the college enrollment rate and success of undergraduate STEM students, with emphasis on rural first-generation students in West Virginia. At the core of our shared vision is the inclusion of students themselves as co-creators of the solutions.      First2 is an outgrowth of a two-year pilot project funded by the National Science Foundation in 2016. During the pilot, we began to create and test interventions that address the underlying reasons for attrition in STEM majors, and to develop a preliminary research program to better understand rural first-generation STEM students, a population for which there is scant existing research.    We engaged 36 rural first-generation students in some combination of early STEM research experiences, an online discovery-based "principles of research and development" college seminar, a “hometown ambassador” program, and leadership training. We also developed and administered an online survey to an additional 101 first generation students attending West Virginia University and Fairmont State University.    This presentation describes the research and evaluation findings from the pilot project and implications for the Network moving forward.    The First2 Network Design and Development Pilot Project was supported by National Science Foundation INCLUDES Award No. 1649323. 

Many college students in West Virginia hail from rural communities and are the first in their families to pursue an undergraduate degree. Research indicates that first-generation college students can face particular barriers to their postsecondary persistence, as can rural students. However, data on the persistence of first-generation college students who are also from rural places is scant. To better understand—and help remove—the barriers confronting such young people interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), the FIRST TWO Project (https://first2network.org/) brings together community college and university faculty, administrators, national laboratory professionals, and rural education experts. The FIRST TWO pilot program integrates early STEM experiences via internships, a support network for rural first-generation STEM students, and STEM skills development through a discovery-based "principles of research and development" college seminar for first-year students. A "Hometown Ambassadors" program component prepares students to return to their home communities to engage younger students’ interest in STEM, and teachers’ and school board members’ support for STEM education. Our goal is for project courses and support mechanisms to be fully transferrable to other institutions of higher education in the state so that, ultimately, more rural first-generation students participate in the wider STEM enterprise.   Funding for the project is provided by the National Science Foundation INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) initiative.