Promoting Student Success through a Social, Academic, and Institutional Support System in Engineering Education

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Program, this Track 2 project will develop and study a sustainable system of academic, institutional, and social supports (i.e., formal peer-mentoring program) for first-year engineering students at the University of Texas El Paso. The Promoviendo el Éxito Estudiantil a través de un Sistema de Apoyo (PromESA) model offers educational and personal support for students by providing mentees with tutoring, advising and connections to available university services.

Equally importantly, the project will provide social-emotional support, provide opportunities to build friendships, and affirm students’ sense of belonging, particularly for Latinx students. PromESA components will specifically account for students’ intersecting identities (e.g., gender, first-generation college student status, cultural heritage).

Research findings will inform efforts to provide academic, institutional, and social support for under-served populations while addressing the lack of a sense of belonging experienced by Latinx students in engineering education.

This project will implement a holistic, socio-culturally responsive peer-mentoring program adapted from the evidence-based Promotores de Educación Program developed at California State University at Long Beach. This multidimensional initiative will be guided by four objectives. First is to increase students’ sense of belonging by incorporating holistic, socio-culturally responsive practices into training and professional development for faculty and peer mentors.

Second is to build awareness of Latinx cultural assets and values into the landscape of the piloting department. Third is to increase participating students’ retention, persistence, and academic performance in their engineering degree programs. Fourth is to establish structures and policies to institutionalize major project components beyond the award period.

The embedded action research effort will use a combination of qualitative and participatory research methods to offer a fuller understanding of the impact of peer-mentoring programs for students from historically minoritized/marginalized populations. The research will specifically examine how such programs can impact participants and narrow the knowledge gap on the impacts of peer-mentoring programs for Latinx students pursuing engineering degrees, particularly when leveraging their cultural strengths and their intersectional identities.

Furthermore, the knowledge generated will provide the engineering education research community with a deeper understanding of the unique experiences and perspectives of Latinx 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.