Transdisciplinary Approach to Strengthening Students’ Identity, Persistence to Degree, and Career Success in STEM

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 Winthrop University, a public regional comprehensive institution serving a diverse population of students from groups historically marginalized in their pursuit of STEM courses of study and careers. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 30 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in chemistry, computer science, and/or mathematics.

Across three cohorts, 21 entering freshmen and 9 sophomores will receive support. Scholars will participate in a comprehensive suite of activities with a transdisciplinary focus, including a summer bridge program incorporating inquiry-based transdisciplinary projects across math, chemistry, and computer science courses; a dedicated section of Winthrop’s required First-Year Experience course; regular academic counseling and intrusive faculty mentoring; opportunities to engage in undergraduate research and/or internships; and a two-tiered seminar program to equip Scholars for academic and personal success and provide targeted career development supports.

This project will help to elucidate best practices for facilitating graduation and placement of low-income students into STEM careers; the most impactful means of building students’ academic self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and professional identity; and the benefits of a unifying, transdisciplinary approach to these endeavors. Scaling up of the most impactful practices across Winthrop’s campus will benefit a large population of students from underserved groups, expanding the pipeline of broadly trained STEM graduates into the regional workforce.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specific objectives include: (1) improving success rates in introductory chemistry, calculus, and computer science courses, which is expected to increase 1-year retention rates; (2) increasing graduation rates, with at least 70% of Scholars graduating in STEM fields; and (3) placing at least 85% of program alumni into STEM graduate programs and/or employment.

Research questions will probe the degree to which Scholars’ participation in program activities is associated with meeting academic milestones and STEM career placements; facilitating Scholars’ sense of belonging, adaptive learning strategies, academic self-efficacy, motivation to learn, and STEM identity; and cultivating the soft skills and habits of mind required for success in STEM fields. Scholars’ participation in program elements will be meticulously tracked, with impacts analyzed in comparison to a statistically created control group; triangulated data derived from mixed qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to assess the effectiveness of programming and approaches longitudinally, and to identify which aspects are maximally impactful.

Findings will be disseminated across the STEM and higher education communities, and across regional and national networks in which Winthrop participates, via conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications. Dissemination will emphasize “what works,” so that best practices can be implemented at institutions across the country, helping to improve outcomes for low-income students nationwide.

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.