This significant project will provide at least 60 scholarships to financially eligible and academically meritorious students at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) who are majoring in physics. UCI is a leader in serving low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented students and recently the number of incoming physics majors has doubled. However, the rate of retention has remained low as admissions have grown. This project will provide scholarships, strengthen the departmental student community, increase academic support through faculty advising and access to tutoring in gateway courses, and encourage research and industry opportunities to combat this trend.
The S-STEM Physics Scholars Program aims to double the number of students who graduate with a physics degree, increase the graduation rate of low-income students to 75%, and improve physics major academic success in introductory physics and mathematics courses. This work will contribute to understanding of student experience and outcomes due to interventions targeted to increase student retention, particularly of low-income and first-generation students. The research conducted under this project will have a major impact on the extent and ways that Physics Education is implemented and supported at UCI, have implications for undergraduate STEM program design and instruction, and make contributions to foundational knowledge and theory regarding college persistence in STEM fields. This research includes surveys and other quantitative measures as well as qualitative interviews from students, faculty and other stakeholders. Research questions center upon persistence, attitudes towards science, and changes in students' physics identity. The project will partner with the Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics to ensure the proper evaluation of benchmarks and other student outcomes and experiences as well as the dissemination of best practices to a national audience.
