Noyce Scholar Retention in Racially and Culturally Non-dominant Communities: Studying the Relationship between Partnerships and Persistence in the Teaching Profession

This project aims to serve the national need to increase the diversity of the STEM teacher workforce by understanding the factors that contribute to STEM teacher retention. This project investigates how the quality of Research-Practice Partnerships that support Noyce Scholars influences persistence and retention of both teachers of Color and White teachers in high-need schools serving racially and culturally non-dominant communities.

The research team aims to investigate how the three Noyce program components - teacher preparation, induction/mentoring, professional development - and the collaborative nature of those teacher development components (i.e., partnerships) affect Noyce Scholars’ persistence in high-need schools serving racially and culturally non-dominant communities. This project includes the study of six Noyce projects at Bowie State University, George Washington University, Mercy College, Montgomery College, the University of Maryland, and American University.

The principal investigator (PI) team seeks to identify differences, and the extent to which the three components contribute to such differences, in persistence and retention in teaching between Scholars of Color and White Scholars. The study is framed through the lens of determining how the Scholars have experienced race, racism, and power within the three Noyce program components described above and how these experiences influenced their retention in the six Noyce projects and in teaching.

In particular, the PI team seeks to develop deeper understanding of how the experiences of serving in racially and culturally non-dominant communities interact with the Scholars’ individual teacher preparation, induction, and professional development experiences at each institution. The research design also examines in what ways, if at all, the partnerships created to support the three Noyce program components have influenced the persistence and retention of Noyce Scholars of Color.

Such partnerships include those between STEM departments and schools/colleges of education, and between Noyce teacher preparation programs and high-need school districts, and other partners. Finally, the research team also asks: What is the quality of the partnerships, how are the quality of the partnerships related to the three Noyce program components, and how the partnership itself influences teacher persistence and retention in schools serving racially and culturally nondominant communities?

The research team will use a mixed methods approach that includes surveys of Scholars, and Noyce program and partner program faculty and staff. Structured, semi-structured, and empathy interviews with selected members of those groups will be conducted. In addition, a multi-case comparison of at least two teacher preparation programs with robust partnership components will occur.

The results of this study are intended to provide evidence-based insights into the influence partnerships have on STEM teacher persistence and retention and how to improve partnerships for the benefit of all stakeholders. Results will be disseminated to practitioner and research audiences including STEM education programs. This Track 4: Noyce Research project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce).

The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts.

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.