Abstract
Undergraduate research opportunities have been demonstrated to promote recruitment, retention, and inclusion of students from underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines. The opportunity to engage in hands-on, discovery-based activities as part of a community helps students develop a strong self-identity in STEM and strengthens their self-efficacy in what can otherwise be daunting fields. Kansas State University has developed an array of undergraduate research opportunities, both in the academic year and summer, and has established a management infrastructure around these programs. The Graduate School, which hosts its own Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program aimed at URM and first-generation college students, coordinates the leadership of the other grant-funded programs, and conducts a series of enrichment and networking activities for students from all the programs. These include professional development as well as primarily social sessions. The Kansas LSAMP, led by Kansas State University, created a summer program aimed at under-represented minority community college students enrolled in STEM fields to recruit them into research opportunities at K-State. There has been strong interest in the program, which incorporated university experience elements in addition to an introduction to STEM research and the four-year university. In the 5 years since the program’s inception, cohorts of nine to fourteen students came to K-State each year for eight-week experiences and took part in both cohort-based sessions and individual mentored research experiences. The two-fold focus of this program, Research Immersion: Pathways to STEM, has resulted in the majority of the students presenting a poster at a national conference and transferring to a STEM major at a four-year institution. Survey results showed that the program was successful at improving STEM identity and academic self-concepts. Qualitative feedback suggested that the two parts of the program worked together to increase interest and self confidence in STEM majors but also ensured that students connect with other students and felt comfortable in the transition to a 4-year institution.
Highlights
The United States faces continued need for graduates in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to address national and global challenges in energy, medicine, infrastructure, computer technology and other STEM fields (The National Academy of Sciences, 2011)
Underrepresented minority (URM) students represent a small percentage of students completing STEM degrees (DePass and Chubin, 2008)
Research questions: There are two areas that encompass elements of these three frameworks that have existing quantitative elements instruments: Academic self-concept and STEM identity. This lends itself to two research questions that will be addressed in this manuscript: 1) Does the Research Immersion: Pathways to STEM (RIPS) Summer Research Program with integrated University experiences increase academic self-concept?
Summary
Eagan and his colleagues (Eagan et al, 2013) noted that in regard to STEM students’ developing science identities, cumulative advantage theory suggested that students who, prior to college, had access to particular resources or experiences (i.e., parent in a STEM career, pre-college research experiences, recognition as highly competent in STEM) that helped develop relatively stronger STEM identities early were more likely to have an even stronger relative STEM identities in the future, especially since they tended to gain greater access to those important resources and activities during college. Research questions: There are two areas that encompass elements of these three frameworks that have existing quantitative elements instruments: Academic self-concept and STEM identity This lends itself to two research questions that will be addressed in this manuscript: 1) Does the RIPS Summer Research Program with integrated University experiences increase academic self-concept?. Since this RIPS program is unique in its focus on community college students, these research questions make a new addition to existing literature
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