Supporting the Academic Success of Undergraduate STEM Students through Scholarships and STEM Identity Development

Rio Hondo College, City Of Industry CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need at Rio Hondo College. Located in Southern California, Rio Hondo College is a public, two-year, Hispanic-serving institution. More than 55% of its students are classified as low-income, first-generation college students. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund two-year scholarships to 45 students who are pursuing associate degrees for transfer in Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by providing financial support, combined with efforts to analyze and support the success of low-income STEM students. The project will include a "Thrive as a Scientist" course, along with support activities such as mentoring/tutoring, undergraduate research experiences, and curricular improvements. This multi-faceted approach is expected to help Scholars acquire a STEM identity that can carry them throughout their college and professional careers. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Current theory about the development of science identity offers a framework to investigate how science identity and cultural identity affect student agency, and what college structures support this development. Unfortunately, most measurement tools related to development of STEM identity were created by four-year institutions for students enrolled in four-year degree programs. Considering the increasing number of underrepresented minority students who begin their post-secondary education at a community college, a pressing need exists to better understand STEM identity development at two-year institutions. This project will help to address this need by using a culturally-sensitive STEM identity instrument to measure and address the barriers and opportunities facing STEM students at two-year colleges. The results will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and to advance understanding of the effects of cultural and STEM identity as students complete their courses of study at two-year institutions, and graduate and/or transfer to four-year institutions in STEM fields. With an emphasis on the two-year college setting, the results of this project will add to the discourse in STEM education with a renewed focus on not just changing student behaviors but also chancing the culture of institutions in which they are enrolled. The project will evaluate the effectiveness of each of the project's components and will publish results of the knowledge generated in education and social science journals, and disseminate findings at regional and national meetings to broaden the impact of the project. 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 STEM workers, 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.