There is a critical need for more students with engineering and science majors to enter into, persist, and graduate from postsecondary institutions. Increasing the diversity in engineering and science is also a profound identified need. According to national statistics, the largest groups of underrepresented minority students in engineering and science attend America?s public higher education institutions and in particular the community colleges. Recent research has indicated that students from these populations who are strong problem solvers, and who understand how to seek assistance and navigate college campuses, are most likely to persist to degree completion. Accordingly, this Research in Engineering Education (REE) project entitled: Research on Innovation and Creativity in Higher education in Engineering and Science (RICHES) for Community Colleges, intends to study a sample of non-traditional college students enrolled in science and engineering programs in urban community colleges to determine: (a) the types and frequency of support practices they utilize, (b) how such practices influence their achievement, persistence and transfer status to four year colleges and universities, and (c) how in turn their propensity for innovation and creative problem solving affect such choices and persistence.
The intellectual merits of this research project are: (1) to explore the informal and formal instructional and support practices used with non-traditional students in community colleges to inform persistence, (2) to understand whether such practices are effective in offering non-traditional students a program that enables them to stay in engineering and science majors and to transfer to a four year college or university, and (3) to determine if students? propensity for innovative problem solving influences use of pedagogical practices and ultimately, transfer persistence. RICHES studies an area and group of students that have been historically understudied, community college students in engineering and science, and builds upon the researchers? current studies of STEM pathways and students? propensity for innovation, both of which are research areas recognized as areas that engineering education must cultivate in students. This project has broad impacts because it has great potential to transform instructional and support practice for non-traditional students and those who are typically underrepresented in engineering and science. It contributes to the development and improvement of educational opportunities for the preparation of a new generation of scientists and engineers who will play a critical role in maintaining U.S. leadership.
