Jennifer Ayala, Ph.D. - US grants

The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI program will also generate new knowledge about how to achieve these aims. This project at Saint Peter's University will advance the aims of the HSI Program by providing 45 high-impact, off-campus internship experiences each year to low income undergraduate students who are pursuing STEM degrees. Low income students can face financial barriers that restrict participation in co-curricular internships, as well as cultural and academic barriers that can lower self-efficacy and self-identity as a scientist when participating in such experiences. To help students overcome these barriers, the project will place students into STEM internships and provide coordinated mentoring from a triad of mentors (a STEM faculty member, the STEM internship coordinator, and the internship supervisor). The project will develop, implement, assess, and evaluate the three major project components: (1) partnerships with non-academic STEM institutions; (2) the triad mentor networks; and (3) professional development activities to improve mentorship. Expected project outcomes include increased student awareness of STEM careers, increased student identity as a STEM practitioner, and contribution of the experience to students' long-term career trajectories. The internship and triad mentoring experiences are predicted to improve student workplace performance and support sustainable partnerships between the university and non-academic STEM institutions.

This project will implement an iterative, design-based research model to create faculty workshops, identify limitations based on the collected data, and modify workshops as needed. This design and improve process may provide a deeper understanding of how to effectively support faculty and students in mentored STEM internships, particularly for students from groups that are underrepresented in science. This research will be informed by data produced from a combination of surveys, interviews, and focus groups specifically targeting (1) barriers to success, (2) alignment between perspectives of students and mentors, and (3) academic deficiencies related to internships. During the project, both the academic and cultural results of project assessment and evaluation will be used to improve project activities. These findings have the potential to provide a design framework for effective mentoring of low-income STEM students to improve retention, to elevate their career aspirations, and to improve job placement. This project will also contribute to the knowledge base on high-impact, deliberative active learning.

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.