Increasing HSI Community College Engineering Students Success: Non-Cognitive Outcome Relationships with Financial Support and Mentoring

Abstract

Hostos Community College (HCC) of The City University of New York (CUNY) recently created and was awarded the NSF S-STEM titled “Hostos Engineering Academic Talent” (HEAT) Scholarship Program. The HEAT Program trains a subset of student as part of the HCC Joint Dual Engineering Degree Program with The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering (CCNY’s GSoE) of CUNY. The HEAT Program offers low-income academically talented scholars financial support, and exposure to a variety of high-impact extracurricular activities that include: faculty and peer mentoring model; undergraduate research opportunities; STEM-related field trips; participation at professional STEM conferences; career orientation workshops; and other professional development opportunities. These activities are designed to increase efficacy, belonging and science identity, and are considered complementary to financial aid assistance. Financial aid by itself is insufficient for academic success for low-income academically talented college students.1,2 Here we report partial data as to the impact of the HEAT model on the first cohort of ten HEAT Scholars and five Associates who had benefitted from the program with the exception of direct financial support, as well as faculty and peer mentoring. To this end, we have administered a series of surveys3,4 targeting their perceived utility, program satisfaction, and assessment of non-cognitive and cognitive outcomes. Measures include academic self-efficacy for engineering courses, emotional engagement, identity as an engineer, expectancy for an engineering career, and cognitive engagement. These outcomes were assessed in HEAT Scholars, Associate HEAT Cohort and a control population of non-participating students taken from the HCC engineering general population. At the time the surveys were administered, six out of the ten scholars were conducting research. However, by the end of their first year of the program all were engaged in research. In addition, the scholars reported high levels of cognitive engagement, thinking about different ways to solve problems, and trying to connect current learning to previous knowledge. Most scholars participated in field trips to museums and engineering laboratories and took part in the 9th Hostos STEM Olympiad. As of today, eight out of the ten scholars have obtained their A.S. in Engineering from HCC; five have transferred to CCNY’s GSoE, and two to Cornell University. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, one HEAT Scholar had to move out of New York City, but intends to continue pursuing a B.E. degree and thus, 90% of the scholars remain in engineering and 80% remain in the program. The United States is in need of an increased and diverse STEM workforce.5 HCC via its Joint Dual Engineering Degree Program with The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering of CUNY is contributing towards this endeavor. Results of our study on non-cognitive impacts show that HEAT scholars have higher academic self-efficacy for engineering courses, feeling confident in the ability to learn the material, and to meet the challenge of performing well in engineering courses compared to the engineering population. HEAT Scholars also reported high levels of emotional engagement looking forward to engineering classes, enjoying learning new things about engineering, wanting to understand what is taught, and feeling good when in engineering classes. In addition, the Scholars reported high levels of cognitive engagement through the work in their engineering. Associate scholars scored significantly lower in all these measures comparable to that seen in the non-participating control. We consider this work exploratory as we look to confirm with a larger cohort size. This preliminary analysis of the HEAT program indicates its positive impact on the development of Scholars’ non-cognitive and cognitive outcomes due to their participation in the program’s activities. The scholars feel supported both morally and financially and appreciate that faculty and peer mentors are available at all times to encourage and advise. Acknowledgments - We are grateful to the National Science Foundation (NSF S-STEM Award DUE-1833767), the HCC Office of Academic Affairs, our Hostos STEM students, our HEAT Program Assistant Luis Tejeda Ortiz for his significance contribution to HEAT, and the HCC and CCNY’s GSoE Financial Aid Offices, and the CUNY Research Foundation.