Exploring the Roles of Academic Pathways and Intersecting Identities on Persistence and Translation of Two-Year College Students

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at The Citadel and Trident Technical College (TTC). This collaboration between a four-year and two-year college will focus on college transfer degree programs (CTP) in engineering. Over its one-year duration, this Collaborative Planning Grant project aims to prepare for a Track 3 S-STEM proposal centered on transfer students in STEM fields by documenting challenges to student persistence including math preparedness, curricular barriers, and multiple identities. While research on the barriers facing traditional engineering students is extensive, less work is available on the barriers facing students pursuing a CTP pathway in STEM. The project will engage stakeholders at both institutions via working groups to inform the design of a cross-institutional scholarship program specific to college transfer students. Two-year colleges are more accessible to low-income populations than four-year institutions, so this project has the potential to broaden participation in the STEM field and inform curricular and cocurricular program development to support transfer students. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The four specific project aims will support the project team in building capacity across The Citadel and TTC to submit a Track 3 S-STEM project: (1) assess the math preparedness of incoming two-year college students; (2) identify curricular barriers to completion of an engineering associate’s degree at TTC; (3) explore how students’ identities impact their academic pathways; and (4) use institutional, survey, and focus group data to plan future S-STEM interventions. A significant body of literature supports the lack of math preparedness and the presence of “barrier” or “gateway” courses with student attrition from STEM. Additionally, the development of “student” or “engineer” identities are associated with retention in STEM. However, little is known about how these factors affect persistence of transfer students in engineering programs. This project will document math-preparedness, barriers, identities, and academic persistence in transfer students by comparing pre-, post-, and non-transfer populations. Analysis of survey, focus group, and institutional data will be subject to statistical and regression analysis to identify trends and outliers. Discussion of the data at cross institutional working group meetings will inform design of a future scholarship program. Results of this project will be made available at regional and national engineering education conferences and through publications. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students. 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.