Assessing Peer Mentorship as a Scalable Intervention to Promote the Academic Success and Retention of Diverse Undergraduate Biology Majors

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate biology student academic success and retention in the major. At most universities in the United States, roughly 50% of undergraduate biology students leave the major within the first two years of their studies. To address this concern, most institutions put in place a number of first-year student support programs. There are, however, considerable challenges and significantly fewer supports for biology students in their second year of study when the student retention rate is at its lowest. This project seeks to improve the success of second year biology majors by implementing and characterizing near-peer mentorship programs at two research-intensive, minority serving institutions. Upper division biology peer mentors who have themselves overcome common barriers to student success will provide academic insights and supports tailored to their second-year biology major mentees. Importantly, this project is intended to shed light on the theoretical mechanisms by which peer mentorship promotes mentee academic success. Advancing understanding of how peer mentorship works may enable wide adoption and successful implementation of this strategy at a national level across various post-secondary academic settings. In turn, this should increase the number, quality, and diversity of students graduating with STEM degrees. To assess the impact of peer mentorship, this project will employ a rigorous randomized control research design that will enable the assessment of how peer mentorship influences mentee (1) short-term and longer-term academic performance and retention and (2) sense of belonging, academic self-efficacy, and academic habit complexity. Additionally, the project will include a focus on identifying and investigating effective near-peer mentorship practices to assess how these behaviors impact mentee outcomes. To assess whether peer mentorship is a scalable intervention at diverse universities, this project will implement peer mentorship programs at two large, public Hispanic-serving institutions where both biology programs share similar academic challenges at the second year level. The mentorship structure will include mentee:mentor cohorts in 6:1 ratios, a seminar course where mentees participate in guided discussions on topics relevant to student success, and weekly mentor check-ins. To characterize these mentorship structures and achieve the previously mentioned goals, data will be collected from a variety of sources. Institutional Research groups at each project site will provide academic grades, major declaration, and demographic data for mentees, while project-generated survey instruments will capture mentee noncognitive impacts and mentor behaviors linked with these outcomes. Combined, these data will advance understanding of how peer mentoring promotes student academic success in challenging STEM majors. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. 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.