Closing STEM Student Academic Performance Equity Gaps Through Student Research Exposure and Faculty Professional Development in Pedagogy and Curricular Innovation

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2 Implementation and Evaluation project will implement evidence-based faculty development leading to an institutional culture supportive of diversity, equity, and inclusion within STEM disciplines at a minority serving community college. Further, it will demonstrate the combined impact of such pedagogical and curricular practices with sustained, multi-faceted student supports, and enhanced exposure to undergraduate research experiences for building STEM identity, leading to improved student academic performance and successful transfer to baccalaureate STEM degree programs.

Annually, RCC serves more than 30,000 students. Students from traditionally underrepresented ethnic backgrounds represent 73% of students enrolled at RCC, of which Hispanic students are the majority group (63%). For the students of RCC, education, especially STEM education, offers the promise of improving their social mobility and quality of life.

However, these disciplines are among the most rigorous, and have high course failure and attrition rates. There are notable equity performance gaps in core STEM course performance, persistence within STEM, and transfer to four-year universities for Hispanic, African American, and other underrepresented groups in higher education. We seek to change that through sustainable improvement in teaching and learning.

To accomplish this goal, we are partnering with California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB) to replicate work they have done with faculty development around inclusive and responsive STEM pedagogy, and to expand targeted student support, mentorship and exposure to student research opportunities.

Two complementary sets of activity will be implemented: (1) peer-led faculty professional development focused on pedagogical and curricular improvements in STEM; (2) expansion of student experiential learning and research within and across STEM disciplines, and through exposure to summer research experiences at a transfer destination university. Those activities will result in (1) increased STEM faculty knowledge, skills, and utilization of culturally sensitive, inclusive, and active learning pedagogy; (2) increased STEM student retention, term-to-term persistence, course success, and transfer rate, and closing of student equity gaps; (3) contributions to the knowledge-base about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in STEM.

The project will create a STEM faculty learning community (FLC) to develop and implement equity-minded, evidence-based practices proven effective for supporting Hispanic and other underrepresented students to succeed in postsecondary STEM education. Research will contribute to the knowledge on STEM education within minority serving institutions by employing a mixed-methods approach to holistically assess the project’s implementation and outcomes at multiple levels.

The project will measure changes in FLC participants’ awareness and implementation of high-impact practices and knowledge of DEI issues in STEM, and changes in students’ STEM-related identity, belonging, and career plans, as well as their academic performance and trajectory. The project results will be informed by and contribute to the literature on underrepresented minority student persistence and success in STEM disciplines, as well as STEM faculty professional development focused on high-impact teaching practices.

Results of this work will be disseminated to multiple audiences via disciplinary conferences, and presentations at conferences specific to community colleges and Hispanic serving institutions. 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.

Projects supported by the HSI Program will also 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.