AERO-STEM Scholars: Access to Early Research Opportunities in STEM

Illinois College, Jacksonville IL

Investigators

Abstract

This five-year project will support the success of sixteen low-income, high-achieving STEM undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need at Illinois College, a private, liberal arts college. Achieving this goal will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. The project will provide scholarships to students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry and Physics. First-year students will receive four-year scholarships. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by linking scholarships with effective supporting activities. Planned activities include a two-week summer program, a supplemental one-credit course entitled "Research Ethics and Professionalism in STEM" for Scholars in their first year, focused mentorship, an optional summer research opportunity, assistance in finding and applying for outside research opportunities or internships, tours of local businesses to broaden their view of potential career avenues in STEM, and tours of nearby universities to explore graduate opportunities. Implementation of this project will strengthen the ability of Illinois College to recruit academically-talented, low-income STEM students, facilitate the academic success and professional preparation of these students, and assess the effectiveness of support strategies that may be utilized to improve delivery of higher education STEM programs across the nation. Thus, this project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM fields. The overall goal of the project is to increase the success rates of low-income, academically-talented students in STEM majors as well as placement of such students in STEM graduate school programs and the STEM workforce. Cognitive and behavioral interventions have been studied in adolescent and pre-adolescent children but have yet to be investigated in college-aged students. The program will provide substantial research opportunities early in students' undergraduate careers to build skills, confidence, and commitment to scientific inquiry. Students will also be trained to apply learning strategies such as mindfulness, study skills, goal setting, and the psychology of learning and memory. The project will generate new knowledge by studying the effectiveness of direct cognitive training to improve collegiate success. This project has the potential to advance the STEM field's limited understanding of the impact of direct training to improve cognitive control in collegiate students. This project is funded by NSF's 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 scientists, engineers, and technicians, 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.