HSI Implementation & Evaluation Project: The North Star Program: A study of mentoring online, non-traditonal, underrepresented STEM students

恒指实施

• 批准号: 2344508
• 负责人: Margaret Martyn
• 金额: $ 49.89万
• 依托单位: The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-04-01 至 2027-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2344508&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: HSI; Implementation; & Evaluation; Project

With the support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2 project aims to develop an online near-peer mentoring program to provide academic and social support to increase student persistence and completion. Based on previous literature and The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP) institutional research data, it is posited that undergraduates who are online, non-traditional, underrepresented minorities, and first-generation college students enter their program with low levels of self-efficacy, lacking a sense of belonging in an academic setting. Historically, these students have lower college persistence and completion levels than their on-campus, traditional-aged peers. We seek to study whether a connection to near-peer graduate students with similar demographic traits and lived experiences will break their isolation and increase their sense of belonging and self-efficacy. While the demand for and pursuit of online education, along with subsequent challenges to student persistence and completion, has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a dearth of research specifically focused on online students and virtual mentoring. The North Star Project will provide students with directed one-on-one support from their near peers who share intersectional identities with them and have completed similar academic programs. Specifically, the project will engage students enrolled in the Master of Psychology degree as mentors to provide social support to increase Bachelor of Psychology student persistence and completion. Expected outcomes include increased student sense of belonging and self-efficacy in their degree program, resulting in increased rates of persistence, completion, and entry to graduate study.Through analysis of pre/post-self-efficacy and sense of belonging measurements, mentor and mentee feedback, academic performance, and persistence data, the project will advance knowledge of how mentoring of non-traditional-aged, underrepresented online students affects their persistence, completion, and pursuit of graduate study in psychology. This research will provide new insights into methods of building a sense of belonging and self-efficacy in this growing population of underrepresented, non-traditional-aged students and the differences in the effectiveness of this intervention on campus-based versus fully online students. The research questions to be explored are: does near-peer mentoring enhance an online student’s sense of belonging and self-efficacy in a degree program? Does near-peer mentoring increase online student fall-to-fall persistence? And does a near-peer mentoring program increase degree completion and pursuit of graduate study? Previous work in this area has focused on traditional-aged students in physical sciences on residential campuses. This project has the potential to diversify psychological research, providing a shared, lived experience perspective from underrepresented and non-traditional groups to advance the field. Their increased persistence, completion, and entry into graduate study will increase diverse perspectives in psychological scientific research and other STEM fields. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HIS Program will also generate new knowledge on achieving these aims.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.

在“改善本科 STEM 教育：西班牙裔服务机构”（HSI 计划）的支持下，该轨道 2 项目旨在开发一个在线近同伴辅导计划，以提供学术和社会支持，以提高学生的坚持性和完成度。和芝加哥专业心理学院 (TCSPP) 机构研究数据表明，在线本科生、非传统、代表性不足的少数族裔和第一代大学生在进入他们的项目时，其学习水平较低。从历史上看，这些学生的大学坚持和完成水平低于校园内的传统年龄同龄人。我们试图研究与近同龄研究生的联系。相似的人口特征和生活经历将打破他们的孤立感，增强他们的归属感和自我效能感，而自 COVID-19 大流行以来，对在线教育的需求和追求，以及随之而来的对学生坚持和完成的挑战，都显着增长。 ，有专门针对的深度研究北极星项目将为学生提供直接的一对一支持，这些支持与他们有共同的身份并完成了类似的学术课程。具体来说，该项目将吸引攻读硕士学位的学生。心理学学位作为导师提供社会支持，以提高心理学学士学位学生的坚持和完成预期成果包括提高学生对学位课程的归属感和自我效能感，从而提高坚持、完成和进入研究生学习的比率。 .通过分析通过前/后的自我效能感和归属感测量、导师和受训者的反馈、学业成绩和坚持性数据，该项目将增进人们对非传统年龄、代表性不足的在线学生的指导如何影响他们的坚持、完成和坚持的了解。这项研究将为不断增长的代表性不足的非传统年龄学生群体建立归属感和自我效能感的方法以及这种校园干预的有效性差异提供新的见解。基于要探讨的研究问题是：近同伴指导是否可以增强在线学生在学位课程中的归属感和自我效能感？近同伴指导计划可提高学位完成率和研究生学习的追求？该领域的先前工作主要针对住宿校园物理科学领域的传统年龄学生。该项目有可能使心理学研究多样化，提供共享的生活体验。视角从HSI 计划旨在加强本科生 STEM 教育并建设 HSI 的能力，以促进该领域的发展。 HIS 计划支持的项目也将产生实现这些目标的新知识。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。