HOW TO KEEP US: STUDENT VOICES ON WHAT WORKS FOR TRANSFER RETENTION IN STEM Transforming STEM in Higher Ed | November 8, 2019

Angela DosAlmas & Valerie Imbruce

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Background & Significance

Attrition1

Began at: 4-yr 2-yr

Enter STEM 28% 20% Exit (w/in 6 yrs) 48% 69%

���1 Chen, X. (2013)

This means that only 6.2% of community college students earn a STEM bachelor’s degree w/in 6 years of enrollment compared to 14.6% of their 4-year counterparts

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Background & Significance (con’t)

Research has linked attrition to:

Access •  Credit load •  4 yr selection &

enrollment •  Credit loss at transfer •  Transfer shock •  Financial resources •  Academic preparation

Identities •  Race •  Gender •  Ethnicity •  First-gen status •  Income status

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Binghamton Context §  Entering:

§  More likely to be first gen w/ weaker academic prep §  Lower quantitative confidence §  Similar intellectual and social self-confidence §  Similar drive to achieve

n  Seniors: §  Were more challenged academically §  Spent more time tending to work and family, less on social activities §  Lower sense of belonging on campus §  Rated quality of interactions with peers lower, but quality of education

higher

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Research Questions

1.  How does participation in our program impact students’ experiences in STEM majors at a research university?

2.  How do our interventions shape the students’ sense of self?

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Theoretical & Analytical Frame: Power, Identity & Knowledge(s) and Meanings §  How we come to know and our sense of being are

produced by the same social processes – negotiations of meanings

§  Power plays an important role in these negotiations §  Meanings and hence, identities and knowledges, are

tied to stories (Grand narratives or big ‘D’ Discourses (Gee, 2005))

§  Stories are tied to history §  Stories are performative (Butler, 1999)

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Research Design

§  Design-based (Design-Based Research Collective (DBRC), 2003)

§  (Full project) Mixed methods; here, focus on qualitative (Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011))

§  Narrative Inquiry (Xu and Connelly (2010))

Smart Energy Scholars Program

Multiple Institution

Partnership

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Multiple Institution

Partnership

$$

Smart Energy Scholars Program

Requirements

§  Attend partner school full-time §  Major in chemistry, physics or mechanical

engineering §  Demonstrate financial need §  Have an interest in smart energy §  Maintain 3.0 GPA

§  Financial Support (up to $10,000/yr) §  Mentor/Advisor pre- & post-transfer

support §  Articulation agreements & guaranteed

transfer §  Seminar (designed to be 1-credit) §  Community- & Cohort-building activities §  High Impact practices (e.g., early research

experiences) §  Professional Development §  “Identity work”

Smart Energy Scholars Program

Elements

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Smart Energy Scholars Spring 2018 Fall 2018 Spring 2019

Karl (BCC) Olivia (BU) Brooke (BU) Eric (BCC) Kainoa (BU) Sedik (BU) Aaron (BCC) Lucas (BU) Kurt (BCC) Nancy (BCC) Teale (BU)* Xander (BCC) Callan (BCC) Edward (BCC) Lin (BU) Ben (BCC) Inderjit (QCC) Nasir (BU)* Yuan (QCC) Cody (BU) Einstein (QCC) Isaiah (QCC) Zara (BU)* Irene (QCC) Elena (QCC)

Nancy (BCC) Callan (BCC) Ben (BCC) Yuan (BCC)

Spring 2019 total: 21

4 students who left program and/or university

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Why do students leave?

Nancy (BCC) Callan (BCC)+

Ben (BCC)+

Yuan (BCC)

“I just never took the time to consider whether I actually like mechanical engineering or not.”

Logistical IssueFinancially Ineligible after transfer

Medical withdrawal

Medical withdrawal

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Sources of Data Quantitative Qualitative

SERU Interviews GPA Seminar/Focus groups

Field notes STEM History Assignments

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Preliminary Findings

§  Exposed students to novel ideas and experiences (that “they don’t teach you in college” or that students “never really had to think about before”) (25%)

§  Enabled personal support/Sense of community (35%)

§  Enabled educational support/Peer Networking (25%)

§  Provided access to faculty & industry professionals (35%)

§  Provided a source of resume padding (10%)

How does program participation impact students’ experiences?

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Examples

“Well, you get the connections to research faculty and companies that come to talk to us about what they're doing, what they're studying, and I feel like those connections, and just showing us that there are different opportunities, is very helpful.”

“But honestly, I really liked that we got to check in every week and just be like, "How was your week?" Because that made me feel like the people within the program cared more about not just how I'm doing academically, like literally how my life is in the week and that doesn't always include academics…”

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Examples “…the most part…I like is, take part in some actual activity like we want to learn the purpose of learning. That's kind of interesting for me. All we can do is talk about our own experience. That's really interesting. And just expanding our views…How [meaning changes], for example, the coffee. When you think of it, it's different. You have to learn things from other views. So, not just to focus on one thing.” “…I made a lot of friends this year who are also in mechanical engineering and they talked a lot about ... they were juniors and such, some of them are seniors, so I really got a glimpse their workload, what they would be able to do, the type of work that I'm going to have to do in the year that they're currently doing. So, in that aspect, I really got a lot of resources from them…” “It's good to have it on a resume. Jobs like that.”

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Preliminary Findings How does program participation impact students’ experiences? Financially: §  Lessened financial stress (100%), but:

§  Lessened work hours (40% still had to work)

§  Would not be able to attend without it (30%)

“Always on my mind, like a dark spot in my brain. Even when everything is going great, the fear of debt hangs above my head, like a guillotine.”

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Preliminary Findings

§  Finding your “why”

How do our interventions shape students’ sense of self?

“I don’t know if I have a “why”. I tried something, I liked it and kept going with it not because I was looking to do something with my life. Before I was just jumping from job to job and my girlfriend at the time was the one who convinced me to go back to school and I went and it was going well for me so I just kept going with it just because it was going well for me not because I thought about ‘let me do something’…I don’t know what I want to do…I still haven’t found that “why””

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Preliminary Findings

§  Sense of belonging/Feeling “cared about”

§  Hardwork/Effortless achievement binary

How do our interventions shape students’ sense of self?

“I feel like a little bit of pride at least knowing that the school views me as someone who is receiving a scholarship. They’re valuing me specifically—because I’m studying physics or whatever the reasons are. So, I feel pride in that.”

“So, I feel like a lot of my friends and I, we overestimated college when we first, when we were coming in. So, we thought it was going to be more difficult than it was.”

“…even if my GPA is high or it’s alright…”

Navigating toward “Easy”

or “Effortless

achievement”

Navigating away from “Effortless achievement” – ‘apologetic behavior’ in feminist studies

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Preliminary Findings How do our interventions shape students’ sense of self?

§  Re-evaluate career goals “Previously, I really want to be a teacher in high school. But then after joining the Smart Energy Program, I think I will have chance to do I mean other research project with other professionals in chemistry field. So, maybe I really want to just, maybe I can pursue a PhD in the future, if it's available. So that kind of changed my mind.”

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Take Aways

§  Belonging & goals (“why”) important §  Still struggle financially §  Students report obstacles out of program’s control

n  Faculty n  Classes

§  People who “connect on a personal level” with students

The first thing you do is to forget that i’m Black. Second, you must never forget that i’m Black.

Pat Parker §  “Identity work”

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Findings §  Attrition thus far, lower than national STEM averages, but

not Binghamton as a whole (not just STEM) averages

Program 4 yr Transfers 16% 0% 20%

4 yr Transfers 48% 69%

Program Attrition Rates

National Averages

4 yr Transfers 9% 15%

Binghamton Averages

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References §  Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble. 2nd ed. New York:

Routledge. §  Chen, X. (2013). STEM Attrition: College Students’

Paths Into and Out of STEM Fields (NCES 2014-001). National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC.

§  Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

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References

§  Design-Based Research Collective. (2003). Design-based research: An emerging paradigm for educational inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32, 5-8.

§  Gee, J. (2005). Introduction to Discourse Analysis. NY: Routledge.

§  Xu, S. & Connelly, M. (2010). Narrative inquiry for school-based research. Narrative Inquiry, 20, 349-370.

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Contacts

§  Dr. Angela DosAlmas, Mills College, Fellow (previously STEM Education Researcher at Binghamton University) adosalmas@mills.edu

§  Valerie Imbruce, Binghamton University, Director of the Undergraduate Research Center and the Office of External Scholarships, Fellowships and Awards vimbruce@binghamton.edu