Assessing the Impact of an Inclusive Community of Practice to Advance Motivation and Persistence among STEM Student Researchers

The National Science Foundation is committed to enhancing undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions to broaden participation in the nation's STEM workforce. Towards this goal, this project seeks to leverage the extensive experience of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) through their role in convening the Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM and examining its impacts on improving motivation and persistence among undergraduate and graduate students.

Since 2011, the ERN Conference has engaged a diverse group of participants of more than 14,000 students and faculty, all of whom have engaged in STEM education and research initiatives supported by NSF Programs. Prior data collection efforts have primarily focused on assessing the conference’s targeted activities, whereby aggregated data have revealed evidence to support advances in students’ awareness of educational and career opportunities.

This project builds on these learnings and aims to implement a standardized data collection protocol to support a more in-depth analysis. The new analysis will generate predictive indicators of student success by considering demographic and various qualitative data that provide a rich description of the lived experience of participants and consider participation patterns over time.

Collectively, the results have the potential to provide a better understanding of the long-term impacts of participation in ERN on specific student populations.

AAAS will conduct a five-year longitudinal study that employs a mixed methods approach with the ERN Conference as the primary data source. The data will be disaggregated to determine trends across various demographics to include institution type and STEM discipline-specific research areas. This project will assess the role of mentoring for both students and faculty, as well as the role of community-specific engagement to support students with disabilities, support student well-being and mental health, and engage students with their disciplinary professional societies.

The project provides a unique opportunity to foster talent development within the STEM workforce, as well as deepen and expand current understanding of how targeted efforts centered on research capacity, community building, and career preparation, contribute to advancing motivation in STEM. This project will engage a direct target of 5,000+ students (~1,000 annually), 500+ (~100 annually) faculty, and other constituents within the broader STEM community.

The broader impact of this analysis of ERN participants will contribute to a more inclusive STEM ecosystem to address global challenges.

This project is co-funded by the following NSF programs in the STEM Education Directorate: the Historically Black Colleges and Universities - Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP), the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP), Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST), Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), and the Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Initiative. Cross Directorate co-funding support is also provided by the Physics Program in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, Crosscutting Activities Program in the Geosciences Directorate, the Broadening Participation in Engineering Program in the Engineering Directorate and the Emerging Frontiers Division in the Biological Sciences Directorate.

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.