Improving STEM Undergraduate Student Outcomes Through Partnerships, Mentoring, and High Impact Practices

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Bridgewater State University, a public, master’s degree offering comprehensive university. Over its six year duration, this project will fund scholarships for 35 full-time students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry, Computer Science, Geological Sciences, Mathematics, Photonics and Optical Engineering, and Physics.

First-year students, in one of three cohorts, will receive four years of scholarship. Additional targeted supports will include mentoring and engaging the students in activities (e.g., undergraduate research and internships) known to improve STEM student outcomes. A unique feature of the project is its use of a partnership with a professional organization that specifically serves individuals from groups that are often underrepresented in STEM.

In doing so, the project expects to better understand how partnerships with professional organizations can aid in students' STEM identity and retention. This understanding has implications for both generation of new knowledge and sharing of that knowledge to other institutions and professional organizations interested in improving STEM student outcomes.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduate Scholars with demonstrated financial need. The project aims to investigate two research questions: (1) In what ways does a broad mentoring approach involving both faculty and diverse STEM professionals influence Scholar persistence, self-efficacy, STEM identity, and the outcome expectations associated with participation in coursework and co-curricular activities? (2) To what extent do Scholars attribute the development of their self-efficacy, STEM identity, and outcome expectations to their specific interaction with mentors from a professional organization (specifically the National Society for Black Engineers- Boston), compared with development attributed to program components not involving outside mentors?

This project will be building upon well-established knowledge that participation in programs integrating high-impact practices, including mentoring, lead to positive outcomes in STEM retention through the development of a strong STEM identity. This project will further examine how the addition of a partnership with a diverse professional organization can further impact STEM identity, and thus impact STEM retention.

Survey measures and interviews will evaluate growth in how Scholars view their own STEM identity, how validated they feel by external agents in that identity, and how prominent and salient that identity is to their lives. These mediating factors are hypothesized to lead to greater participation in research, service-learning, and other high-impact practices, and to stronger STEM retention.

Interviews with the Scholars will be examined using a keyword analysis that illuminates the relative impact of faculty and professional advisor mentor versus mentoring by a diverse group of STEM professionals external to the university. In addition to standard dissemination practices of professional conference and journal publications, project outcomes will be disseminated through regional and national professional organizations interested in broadening participation in STEM.

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.