Pathways into the Sciences: Supporting Persistence and Graduation of Women Pursuing STEM Degrees

This project will contribute to the national need for skilled scientists by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students at Barnard College, a private women’s liberal arts college. Many academically talented women decide to change to non-STEM majors after initially expressing a strong interest in STEM. This project intends to help women STEM majors persist by providing financial and other supports.

Specifically, the project team will provide one- to four-year scholarships to 30 students, admitted in five cohorts of six students each. The Scholars will pursue bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, or Physics. Scholars will also participate in Barnard’s Science Pathways Scholars Program, a four-year cohort support program that builds on prior NSF S-STEM awards.

The project will also study how math anxiety, science self-efficacy, imposter feelings, and competitive preferences affect Scholars’ experiences and trajectories. In doing so, the project will increase understanding about factors that affect the success of low-income students in STEM, particularly students who are women. These findings will be disseminated to help other educational institutions create more effective interventions that support student success in STEM.

The overall goal of the project is to increase degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need in STEM fields. The project aims to: (1) Provide scholarships and programming, such as faculty mentoring and career planning, to support 30 academically talented STEM students who are eligible for Federal Pell Grants; (2) Provide a comprehensive four-year program that will help Scholars excel in their science education, thus enhancing perseverance and graduation; and (3) Assess the effects of existing institutional support structures and the replacement of work-study and student loans on Scholars’ academic outcomes.

The research plan is designed to examine how targeted financial aid and structural interventions increase retention in the sciences of women with low income and unmet financial need. Applying regression analyses and comparisons, the project’s research study will examine how factors such as math anxiety and science self-efficacy shift over time. It will also seek to determine whether competitive preferences and/or imposter syndrome impact Scholar decisions to take more advanced science courses after disappointing grades in introductory courses, and to identify the effectiveness of financial support differentiated from other types of support.

Annual interviews will provide in-depth information concerning women pursuing STEM careers. 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.