Pathways to Success in Graduate Engineering: Understanding and Supporting the Critical Transition from Undergraduate to Graduate Engineering Studies.

University Of Texas At El Paso, El Paso TX

Investigators

Abstract

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. It will do so by supporting the graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at the University of Texas at El Paso, a research university with a majority Hispanic student population. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide three-year scholarships to 20 students who are pursuing Fast-Track Bachelor-to-Master's degrees in Engineering. Majors include Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Systems Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, and Civil Engineering. This project will create a student support system that combines financial support, curriculum improvements, and mentoring, as well as research skill and professional development opportunities. A noted strength of the proposal is its inclusion of activities to engage students’ family members and peers. The project will conduct a research study to examine the success of the student support system, which provides supports at appropriate points in students' educational path. If successful, this support system has the potential to not only increase success rates of engineering graduate students at the University, but also to improve success at other institutions that apply it. As a result, this project can help meet the critical national need for a well-trained STEM workforce, particularly the need for more engineers. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project focuses on supporting and understanding the critical transition between undergraduate and graduate education, an area that has not been well studied. The project intends to provide an evidence-based model to support this transition that can be implemented at other institutions, thus increasing the successful preparation of students for STEM careers. The project objectives are to: create an innovative, multi-faceted student support ecosystem; implement a mentoring structure to train students as researchers; and analyze the students' pursuit of, persistence in, and success in graduate education. No conceptual model is currently available to orient understanding of the dynamic role of educational interventions in student development through time. Therefore, the project has developed a novel three-stage Student Developmental Trajectory model that will frame its research. Research methodology includes multivariate analyses that control for the effects of differences in initial student attributes and in student exposure to educational environments. The research questions will investigate the impact of interventions on students' short-term, mid-term, and long-term career outcomes, thus advancing basic knowledge of engineering education, as well as applied knowledge of the role of educational interventions in improving STEM career outcomes. The improved knowledge that will emerge through this research is expected to produce a model for student success that will be disseminated nationally. As a result, it can help to increase the number of students who enter successful STEM careers, particularly low-income students who are first-generation and/or from populations underrepresented in STEM. Outcomes and outputs linked to project objectives will be used to evaluate the project. Dissemination of results will occur via publications and presentations at scientific or professional conferences, including those focused on engineering education, graduate studies, and sociology. 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.