Beyond the Classroom: Increasing Persistence in STEM through External Validation in Community College Undergraduate Research Experiences

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate research experiences for community college students. This will be accomplished by incorporating opportunities for students to have their work evaluated and validated outside of the classroom. Currently, most undergraduate research in the community college setting is neither published nor publicly presented. While students may gain value from the research experience itself, often they never experience presenting and/or defending that work publicly. This project intends to provide those opportunities. This project addresses the undergraduate research experience in the community college setting and proposes reforms to improve that experience. Specifically, the project team intends to explore whether the opportunity for students to (1) present at a research symposium, (2) earn a badge or micro-credential for skills associated with undergraduate research or (3) collaborate with experts outside of the classroom, leads to improved science self-efficacy, science identity, sense of belonging, and increased completion/persistence. These reforms, in which a third party evaluates and validates the student's work, is referred to as external validation and this external validation is an integral part of the research experience. In addition to implementing these reforms, the project team intends to use a mixed methods research design guided by the Tripartite Integration Model of Social Influence (Estrada, et al., 2011), to address the following research questions: (1) Compared to students who only participate in course-based undergraduate research, do students who participate in external validating experiences have higher rates of persistence and retention in STEM disciplines? (2) Compared to students who only participate in course-based undergraduate research, do students who participate in external validating experiences have a greater sense of science self-efficacy, science identity, sense of belonging, and perceived value of science. It is hypothesized that building these multiple validation opportunities into existing undergraduate research curriculum will improve the experience for students in a way that leads to increased persistence in STEM and a more diverse STEM workforce. The NSF IUSE: Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education (ITYC) Program seeks to accelerate the impact of and advance knowledge about emerging and evidence-based practices in undergraduate STEM education at two-year colleges. 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.