Broadening Participation: Developing STEM Community Metrics

National Academy Of Sciences, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The National Academy of Sciences requests support for the development of metrics by which to judge the participation and advancement of persons from underrepresented groups in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and careers. The project will be conducted by the National Academy of Engineering. This proposal is based on four recommendation made by the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) in its 2004 report to Congress on "Broadening Participation in America's Science and Engineering Workforce," ( ([1], pp. 7-8). Two of these recommendations were specifically directed at encouraging accountability among NSF's grantee population: Accountability. NSF should expand its systematic and objective evaluation to assess, understand, and report the effectiveness and impact of its programs and policies on broadening participation by: a. continuing to obtain, refine, and disaggregate data and factors related; to the participation of persons from underrepresented groups in STEM education and careers; b. Working with the STEM community to develop specific goals, timelines, metrics, and using them to motivate, track and hold grantee institutions accountable for progress; and c. Building assessment and outcome reporting related to broadening participation into NSF program design and accountability expectations, where appropriate. Policy Levers. NSF should continue to employ and design new policy levers that focus the attention of principle investigators and their institutions on diversity aspects of the broader impacts criterion, on embedding diversity goals in their research, and on designing and implementing sustainable institutional change that helps STEM become more inviting and supportive of women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities at all levels. Activities will include: 1. Identify in collaboration with NSF staff as appropriate, a ten member working group who are collectively representative of NSF's directorates and grantee disciplines - (BIO, CISE, EHR, ENG, GEO, MPS, SBE) as well as NSF's grantee institutional diversity, e.g., research universities, baccalaureate colleges, community colleges, minority serving institutions, etc. and directly experienced in efforts to broaden participation in the science and engineering workforce; 2. Conduct a literature review of existing metrics for assessing breadth of participation used in academic, business, and government environments; 3. Convene the working group to preliminarily identify metrics to judge efforts to identify, attract, engage, support and sustain participation by groups underrepresented in STEM, as well as the actual participation of such persons: 4. Share the metrics developed with the appropriate communities; 5. Refine a final set of integrated metrics; 6. Broadly disseminate project findings to the STEM community.