Improving Engineering Student Success for a Diverse Student Population

Grand Canyon University, Phoenix AZ

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 students with demonstrated financial need at Grand Canyon University. To realize this goal the institution will rely on its strong and trusted presence as a community leader among nearby local school districts that serve high-potential, low-income students. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 12 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Engineering or Engineering Technology. These first-year students will receive 4-year scholarships. This project aims to increase student retention and persistence in engineering by linking scholarships with mentoring and community-building activities to support students from different cultural backgrounds. The goal is to create learning communities that meet the needs of all populations and help diverse populations to thrive in engineering. Faculty mentors will be trained in the application of mentoring approaches that will support students coming from different cultural backgrounds. Further, the scholars will have a dedicated collaborative space on campus in which scholars can mingle, socialize, study, and hold seminars. This space will be located close to classrooms and faculty so that students can find community and social supports, build relationships with peers and faculty, and receive more structured mentoring and training. Because Grand Canyon University enrolls a highly diverse student population, this project has the potential to broaden participation in the engineering workforce and advance knowledge about the impact of mentoring approaches on student success in engineering for a diverse student population. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This project will assess the effectiveness of multicontextuality-centered mentoring, co-curricular experiences, and the collaborative space on student performance, retention, and learning outcomes. The multicontext intervention model used in this project can help address issues within academic cultures that affect student enrollment and completion to improve student success in engineering. This model has specific contextual components for both guiding and measuring change in academic units. Historically, this model has been applied successfully for underrepresented minority and female scholars but its applicability for socioeconomic diversity warrants further study. This project will investigate whether multicontextual approaches can support low-income students and which components are most effective in helping students succeed. A concurrent mixed-methods approach will be used to evaluate project outcomes including qualitative assessments of project meetings, focus groups, and surveys as well as quantitative data for activities such as collaborative space utilization, courses taken, and GPAs. Project results will be made available to university stakeholders via faculty and staff development seminars. The project team will disseminate project outcomes to the engineering education community through presentations at national conferences such as the American Society for Engineering Education and peer-reviewed journal publications. 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.