Promoting Student Success through Expectancy-Value Theory-Informed Supports: Mentoring, Cohort-building, and Scholarships at a Community College

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 Merced Community College District (Merced), a Hispanic Serving Institution. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 32 unique scholars, comprised of 20 full time and 12 part time students who are pursuing associate’s degrees in biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and physics.

First year students attending full time will receive two-year scholarships, and those attending part time will receive four-year scholarships. Project activities include faculty and peer mentoring, cohort-building activities, and career exploration and networking. These are designed to increase motivation to pursue and persist in STEM fields, increase academic success, and improve time to graduation in the STEM disciplines.

The project will be informed by expectancy-value theory (EVT), examining student perceptions of the costs of pursuing a STEM degree and the factors that motivate them to accept those costs to access the perceived values associated with it. By improving existing student supports and creating new programming using student feedback through EVT, all Merced students will benefit.

The project will also provide a replicable model to be shared with other institutions, broadening the impact of EVT to additional underrepresented, first-generation, rural, and community college students interested in pursuing careers in STEM. Project scholars and their communities may also benefit from the higher wages available to those with STEM degrees.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Project goals and specific aims include increased transfer rates to four-year institutions in STEM fields; increased graduation rates of scholar cohorts; reduction in graduation times; increased enrollment of women in engineering, physics, and computer science majors; and wide dissemination of results of the study of Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT)-based supports and their impact on STEM majors at an HSI community college.

EVT posits that motivation to engage in a program is informed by a student’s value and competence beliefs. Perceptions of cost are also important in EVT, and in a STEM education context can include time spent, tuition, and family sacrifices, among others. Existing research literature lacks assessments of EVT when applied to all components of students’ perceived costs of attending college, which extend far beyond the price of tuition and supplies.

There are also gaps in knowledge of EVT factors specific to STEM education among women and community college students. The project will investigate the research questions, “What is the effect of a continuous Expectancy-Value approach to student recruitment, support, and career exploration on the academic success and persistence of STEM students to graduation or transfer in STEM majors?” and “What impact does the Merced S-STEM project have on the rate of graduates seeking a career in a STEM field?” Focus groups and surveys will help identify different costs associated with pursuing STEM programs and the project team will adapt programming and activities to best address those costs and student needs.

A case study approach will provide formative and summative assessment and findings from multiple data sources will be triangulated to build a coherent understanding of program intervention and impact. Key data sources will include: 1) student motivation surveys, 2) focus groups with students, 3) faculty interviews, 4) academic success metrics including performance, attainment of learning objectives in STEM courses, GPAs, graduation rates, post-graduation career plans, and placement in STEM fields.

Knowledge generated will contribute to increased persistence, timely graduation, 4- year college transfers, and careers in STEM by developing and identifying best practices for this student population. The project will provide a model that can be replicated to benefit students at other two- and four-year institutions, with results disseminated through workshops, conferences, and scholarly articles.

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.