This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at St. Norbert College. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund four-year scholarships to 18 students who are pursuing Bachelor of Science degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Environmental Science, Geology, Mathematics, or Physics. The project builds upon existing student success initiatives at the College, with the goal of providing Scholars with a mentored pathway to academic and career success. The Scholars will begin their undergraduate career with an early arrival program, reside in a living learning community with other Scholars, participate in an established academic peer mentoring program, and engage in multi-year faculty-mentored research and/or internships with local industrial partners. Career and educational development will be supplemented via activities that include resume development, a seminar series, a career day, outreach activities, and graduate examination preparation. The project aims to increase the recruitment, retention, graduation, and success of academically-talented students who face economic and financial barriers. The programming developed as part of this project be available to other students, thus broadening the impact of the award. In addition, the project includes a research study to examine when and how students develop their scientific identity, and to determine how project activities affect that process.
The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Scholars will participate in a combination of activities and supports that are well-established for improving success rates among STEM students. The project will study the effect of the combination of activities and supports on development of Scholars' scientific identify. The point at which STEM students identify themselves as future career scientists often affects whether they complete STEM degrees. The project will explore how students' scientific identities and attitudes toward science change as they progress through the project activities and supports. The research study will investigate three research questions: What is the impact of scientific identity and self-efficacy formation on STEM success? How effective is positive scientific socialization on STEM success and retention? Does participation in the project activities and supports increase STEM success for students with low socioeconomic backgrounds? Using the Epistemological Beliefs Assessment and the Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning, the project will evaluate academic readiness, scientific identity and scientific self-efficacy formation, positive socialization, and STEM success of Scholars versus sociodemographically-matched non-Scholars before, during, and after the undergraduate experience. By tracking changes between the cohorts over time, the research will identify if, how, and when scientific identity, self-efficacy formation, and positive socialization impact STEM success. The assessment and evaluation team will also conduct annual focus groups of science majors and the Scholar cohort to gather qualitative information on the project's impact. The findings derived from the assessment and evaluation efforts are intended to be disseminated at local, regional, and national conferences. This project is funded by NSFs Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
