Increasing STEM Persistence and Transfer through Course Based Research Experiences

This project aims to serve the national interest by increasing student participation, persistence, and transfer rates in STEM fields by implementing course-based research experiences across STEM undergraduate courses. By making STEM degrees more accessible to community college students, this project intends to increase the number of qualified employees in STEM careers at a time when employment opportunities are becoming increasingly technologically demanding. According to the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission, “By 2029, our economy will have more than 52,000 new job openings in STEM-related fields.” And yet, community college students majoring in STEM fields have little access to research experiences in their first two years of college due to time constraints and lack of opportunities in the community college setting. To address these issues, this Track 2 ITYC project will employ comprehensive professional development for college faculty across multiple STEM departments. This will be bolstered by robust collaborations with transfer universities, civic organizations, and field research sites. The project intends to foster a strong sense of belonging, enhance public scientific literacy, and develop professional STEM identities among community college students, including non-majors and those from low-income backgrounds. The significance and importance of this project lie in its innovative approach to designing authentic research opportunities specifically tailored for the community college context, where students traditionally have less access to such high-impact practices. Expected outcomes include the narrowing of attainment gaps in degree completion and the establishment of a sustainable and replicable model for integrating research into foundational undergraduate courses to positively impact the regional STEM workforce and thus increase the economic competitiveness of the US globally. The goals and scope of the project encompass increasing institutional capacity and investigating how authentic research interventions impact community college learners. The project plans to provide extensive, scaffolded professional development to STEM faculty members, enabling them to embed research into their curricula through a range of methods. Several of these will include: inquiry-based modules; cross-discipline collaboration on research projects; term-long, authentic research projects; student attendance – and presentation of their research – at regional conferences; and student research internships at Chemeketa and at local partnering universities. The project expects to investigate two primary research questions: how participation in STEM research experiences impacts student interest, identity, persistence, and transfer; and what factors lead to successfully implementing and sustaining these student-centered experiences by faculty members. To evaluate these outcomes, the project plans to employ a rigorous, mixed-methods approach. Quantitative assessment plans include regression analyses of institutional data to track student course success, persistence, and degree attainment in relation to research participation. Qualitative assessment plans include the use of pre- and post-experience surveys, such as the PITS survey, alongside student and faculty focus groups to evaluate changes in STEM-identity and document implementation challenges. By connecting the implementation of course-based undergraduate research experiences with both student outcome data and faculty development data, the project aims to advance the understanding of how to implement and sustain high-impact research practices in community college STEM education. Dissemination plans include sharing newly generated knowledge by publishing a community college-specific research handbook through the Chemeketa Press, presenting findings at regional and national conferences, and submitting original research to discipline-specific scientific journals. The NSF IUSE: Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education (ITYC) Program seeks to accelerate and advance knowledge about the impact of 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.