This project explores approaches to increase the participation of African Americans in environmental and ecological sciences. The project aims to achieve this goal by designing and testing an intervention designed to improve the recruitment of African Americans into environmental and ecological sciences programs and careers. The project will support a combination of exploratory research and professional development activities. The professional development plan centers on helping the investigator acquire expertise in qualitative research methods and in the engagement of minority populations in a formal research setting. Professional development activities will include site visits to study locations, mentoring from coaches and advisors, and attendance at relevant conferences. This project aims to position the investigator to conduct longer term research towards broadening participation in ecological and environmental sciences.
The research project is grounded in identity-based motivation theory and cultural mismatch theory of inequality, and uses social science constructs to collect and analyze the research data. The project has three research questions: (1) Do perceived historical and contemporary constraints influence students' pursuit of ecological and environmentally related STEM disciplines? (2) Does the intervention induce an alignment of African American identity and value system towards greater interest and motivation in ecological and environmentally related STEM disciplines? and (3) Does the intervention induce a shift in perceptions concerning the importance of ecological integrity and biodiversity? The intervention will engage undergraduate students in a summer research and enrichment experience that incorporates constructs to increase interest and motivation to pursue ecological and environmental disciplines. Pilot data will be collected on the effectiveness of the experience and analyzed using qualitative methods. The research will provide insights about the influence of contextualized interventions in addressing STEM education research topics.
The project is supported through the EHR Core Research: Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR: BCSER) competition that is designed to build individuals' capacity to carry out high quality fundamental STEM education research in STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM fields, and STEM workforce development.
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.
