Excellence in Research: Evaluating the Use of Virtual Mentoring for HBCU Undergraduates in Computer Science

卓越研究：评估 HBCU 计算机科学本科生虚拟辅导的使用情况

• 批准号: 1831964
• 负责人: Kinnis Gosha
• 金额: $ 99.29万
• 依托单位: Morehouse College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-10-01 至 2023-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1831964&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Excellence; Research; Evaluating; Use; Virtual; Excellence; Research; Evaluating; Use; Virtual

Morehouse College and Alabama A&M University proposes a collaborative research project to explore the use of avatars, formally known as embodied conversational agents, to provide career mentoring for undergraduate computer science majors who are considering pursuing a graduate degree in computing. The study will include participating students from ten different Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). African Americans with terminal degrees in computer science are scarce, however HBCUs have a strong history of producing African American students who go on to get advanced degrees in computing. Research in this field will enable effective mentors in computer science to scale their best practices to a larger percentage of undergraduate students at HBCUs. This project will also fund the development of formal collaboration between Morehouse College and the Online Masters in Computer Science Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This groundbreaking program will allow the Principal Investigator to serve as the thesis advisor for Masters students at Georgia Tech while they are trained as researchers at Morehouse College.This project will investigate the barriers faced by African American students when deciding on pursuing advanced degrees in computing as well as how intelligent virtual mentors affect their decision. It will examine what is the most effective way for an embodied conversational agent to interact with these specific group of students. Once completed, the findings from this study will be used to expand to other underrepresented groups to provide career mentoring for an assortment of science careers. Additionally, the findings from this research will help to build the research capacity at two HBCUs, Morehouse College and Alabama A&M University.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.

Morehouse College和Alabama A＆M University提出了一个合作研究项目，旨在探索化身的使用，即正式被称为体现的对话代理，为正在考虑攻读计算研究生学位的本科计算机科学专业的学业提供职业指导。该研究将包括来自十个不同历史上黑人大学和大学（HBCU）的参与学生。具有计算机科学终末学位的非洲裔美国人很少，但是HBCU有悠久的历史，这些历史悠久，培养了继续获得计算高级学位的非洲裔美国学生。该领域的研究将使计算机科学的有效指导者能够将最佳实践扩展到HBCUS的大部分本科生。该项目还将资助莫尔豪斯学院与佐治亚理工学院计算机科学计划的在线硕士之间的正式合作发展。这项开创性的计划将允许首席研究人员在佐治亚理工学院的硕士学生中担任论文顾问，同时接受Morehouse College的研究人员接受培训。该项目将调查非裔美国人学生在决定攻读计算高级学位方面所面临的障碍，以及智能虚拟导师如何影响他们的决策。它将研究体现对话代理与这些特定的学生互动的最有效方法。完成后，这项研究的发现将用于扩展到其他代表性不足的群体，以提供各种科学职业的职业指导。此外，这项研究的发现将有助于在两个HBCUS，Morehouse College和Alabama A＆M大学建立研究能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的评估审查标准来通过评估来支持的。