Exploring STEM Identity through a Science Learning Interdisciplinary Community Expansion Scholarship Program

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 the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg (Pitt-Greensburg). Pitt-Greensburg is a regional campus of the University of Pittsburgh that serves a high percentage of students from rural areas of Pennsylvania.

Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 48 unique full-time students pursuing bachelor's degrees in Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, or Applied Mathematics. Both traditional and transfer students will receive scholarships to aid in their education. They will have opportunities to work in cohorts within and outside their majors during first-year orientation, first-year seminar, and science learning communities.

Early connections made in these experiences offer students enhanced support systems to work through more challenging upper-level courses, as do workshops, research projects, and presentation of research to the public, which will also be encouraged and assisted by the grant. The project will also support curriculum improvements aimed at improving first-year student retention in STEM.

This project is designed to engage members from local rural communities- either traditional or transfer students- to advance through their education with additional support structures in place. Ultimately, this program will evaluate how students perceive their ties to their discipline and how that informs their on- and off-campus engagement.

The project’s primary goal is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The Exploring STEM Identity through a Science Learning Interdisciplinary Community Expansion (SLICE) project will enhance student skill sets and create community connections by pursuing several objectives.

First is to utilize cohorts and other supports to remove barriers and to develop authentic peer connections on campus. Second is to expand SLICE Scholars' scientific literacy, communication, and self-efficacy. Third is to encourage SLICE Scholars' career exploration and foster positive professional identity exploration in off-campus settings.

Fourth is to nurture SLICE Scholars' ability to develop, analyze, and effectively communicate research findings through senior capstone research experiences. And fifth, to increase SLICE Scholars' time management abilities, decision making, strategic planning, and problem-solving skills. Primary research interests for this project center around the construction of interdisciplinary learning communities and the investigation of their influence on students' perceptions of their identities within the scientific community, the development of authentic connections with peers and faculty and how that impacts STEM identity, and how students develop expertise both within and outside of their fields.

Prior studies have found positive gains on student retention by reducing the cognitive dissonance experienced upon initial transfer to a new location. This study aims to see if these methods will be effective in engaging students from rural communities, a student population not currently well-reported on in the literature. Evaluation of the project will be conducted using two major methods: (a) evaluating student retention and graduation rates, and (b) using quasi-experimental design methods to qualitatively and quantitatively code student evaluations and surveys of project programming.

Dissemination of results will follow best practices and use a combination of website presence, annual STEM faculty meetings with local community colleges, presentation at local and regional conferences, as well as eventual publication in peer-reviewed journals. 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.