HSI Implementation and Evaluation Project: FUERTE: Fostering Undergraduate Education, Retention and Transfer Environments

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2: Implementation and Evaluation Project will increase the number of Latinx students who obtain baccalaureate degrees in STEM fields, including both those who enter St. Mary’s University as first-time freshmen and those who transfer from their partner, Northwest Vista College.

Research indicates that Latinx students are underrepresented in the STEM workforce. A major reason for this discrepancy is that too few are earning four-year degrees in STEM majors. Not only does this restrict the range of occupational opportunities available to them, but it also attenuates their social mobility.

Rectifying this problem requires understanding the root causes of differential outcomes of schooling. At the system level, Latinx students confront barriers associated with the transfer process, misaligned curricula, pedagogies unsuitable for Latinx students’ needs and experiences, and advising processes that are difficult to negotiate. At the individual level, many have internalized stereotypes that deflate their self-confidence and undermine their image of themselves as future scientists.

Effective responses, therefore, must start with acknowledging that any efforts to scaffold student development must be supplemented by institutional adaptation. This project fully embraces this reality, and the activities proposed reflect research advancements that call for culturally responsive pedagogy, streamlining of the transfer process, developmentally appropriate advising, student-faculty research, and peer mentoring.

Through these efforts, the aim is to produce educational outcomes that are more equitable and just while also facilitating the upward social mobility of their Latinx students.

The specific aims of the project are 1) to support the transfer of students from a two-year to a four-year institution by creating a seamless transfer pathway, 2) to create culturally responsive classroom environments and a system of student support services, 3) to facilitate student progression through STEM majors, and 4) to build competency in STEM. Social cognitive theory is applied toward adapting institutional processes to foster improved attributional tendencies, a heightened sense of competence in science, and stronger feelings of self-efficacy, which will lead Latinx students to persist to the point of earning a STEM degree.

Because of their research design, straightforward connections can be made between changes in student-level characteristics, such as self-efficacy, and the probability of desirable academic outcomes. The findings from this project will make a significant contribution to the literature by extending what is known about social cognitive theory to a distinctly Latinx campus.

Ultimately, the HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs.

Supported by the HSI Program, we will draw from these approaches to 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.