With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by improving STEM curricula and the academic performance of STEM undergraduates. Of the US students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field, less than half persist to earn a STEM degree. The loss is even higher for students from groups that are underrepresented in STEM. Introductory "gatekeeper" courses often have a high failure/withdrawal rate, resulting in a major barrier to student success. Many efforts to improve student performance have focused only on academic preparation and tutoring. However, research has demonstrated that other factors contribute to student performance. Such factors include ineffective teaching, difficulties students have in negotiating social and academic cultures in the university, diminished academic confidence, and a sense of disconnection or feeling like an imposter within the STEM community. To improve the academic performance of STEM majors, this project will design and implement faculty professional development aimed at improving teaching, as well as curricular enhancements to STEM courses and a peer mentoring/ learning community-based approach to student support. This project has the potential to further understanding about how early interventions that focus on both cognitive and non-cognitive factors affect student learning. Since Virginia State University is a historically black public land-grant university in central Virginia, the project has the potential to broaden student success in STEM, thus contributing to a well-educated, diverse US STEM workforce.
This project builds on previous efforts that resulted in increased student success in the introductory course for biology majors. Project objectives include: 1) To integrate critical components of the successful biology majors' model into the biology course for other STEM majors; 2) To develop and implement a peer mentoring structure that integrates evidence-based and piloted practices targeting effective academic habits and maximizing student engagement through learning communities; and 3) To implement a rigorous evaluation plan to determine program impacts, based on cognitive measures (grades, concept inventory, persistence, etc.) and non-cognitive measures (self-efficacy, self-regulation, STEM identity, etc.). The evaluation component of the project will provide formative assessment regarding the impact of project activities, and explore the impacts of the program within and beyond the student cohorts and faculty in the early gatekeeper courses. Results and activities developed by this project will be disseminated through workshops and presentations at regional and national conferences, presentations at peer institutions, and publications in scholarly journals. The project will include a research study about the use of a peer-led team learning paradigm informed by social cognitive theory to mitigate standard predictors of low achievement and improve academic performance in STEM gatekeeper courses. Thus, it has the potential to will generate new knowledge about strategies to increase STEM student performance. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.
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.
