HSI Implementation and Evaluation Project: Improving Professional Preparedness in STEM

California State University-Dominguez Hills Foundation, Carson CA

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2: IEP aims to increase the number of students from California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) who enter the STEM field after graduating. Multiple groups, including those who identify as Latinx, are underrepresented in STEM careers; while Latinx individuals comprise 17% of the working population, they are only 8% of STEM workers. CSUDH is poised to help close this gap because CSUDH serves a student population that is approximately 70% Latinx. Many STEM education initiatives have focused on increasing the graduation rates of STEM students, particularly those from historically marginalized groups. However, graduating with a STEM degree does not necessarily mean students will enter STEM fields for their careers. For example, currently, only 11% of students in the CSUDH Biology department graduate with a job offer or acceptance to graduate or professional school. To increase this number, the project will increase equitable access to and participation in internships, integrate career-focused content throughout the curriculum and add career development conversations to disciplinary-specific advising. Through these initiatives, students will develop a professional identity earlier in their academic careers and strengthen the skills needed to enter a STEM career after graduation. Ultimately, the project will increase the number of students from underrepresented groups entering STEM fields. The immediate objective is to increase the professional preparedness of these students in order to increase their return on investment in college and to diversify the regional STEM workforce. The project will use a multi-faceted approach to help students better realize their professional goals by ensuring that more students engage deeply in internships and/or research opportunities, include more career and professional skill development in courses, implement inclusive advising, and increase participation in student clubs. It is hypothesized that how students think about their career pathways will affect whether they have concrete career plans when they graduate, student retention, and time to graduation. To test these hypotheses, the project will utilize mixed-model assessments and grounded theory to analyze data collected throughout students’ academic careers to understand how students form their career plans. This project will expand the metrics of student success to not only include persistence to a degree or transition to graduate school, but also to “path to career.” In doing so, the project will provide much-needed research on one understudied aspect of underrepresented minority groups in STEM: how students conceptualize their pathway to a career. More generally, the biology department will serve as an incubator for best practices in developing STEM career identity. Once it is better understood how students conceptualize their career pathways, and which interventions positively affect career-focused outcomes, the project results will be disseminated through on-campus forums and peer-reviewed journal articles, and conference presentations. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. 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.