| NSF Org: |
DGE Division Of Graduate Education |
| Recipient: |
|
| Initial Amendment Date: | September 19, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 18, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1633275 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Daniel Denecke
ddenecke@nsf.gov (703)292-8072 DGE Division Of Graduate Education EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | September 15, 2016 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $428,022.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $500,054.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2018 = $72,032.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
|
| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1 LOMB MEMORIAL DR ROCHESTER NY US 14623-5603 (585)475-7987 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
| Primary Place of Performance: |
1 LOMB MEMORIAL DR Rochester NY US 14623-5603 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
| Parent UEI: |
|
| NSF Program(s): |
Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES, NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) |
| Primary Program Source: |
04001819DB NSF Education & Human Resource |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
|
| Program Element Code(s): |
|
| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
The issue of diversity in STEM is of national importance. The future needs of the US technological workforce necessitate cultivating the entire domestic talent pool, especially groups historically and currently underrepresented in STEM: women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. Successfully transitioning underrepresented students to graduate studies is key to this vision, but the majority of STEM PhD programs are failing in this regard. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award in the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Track to the Rochester Institute of Technology and the American Physical Society (APS) will explore interventions that may help increase the access of US women and underrepresented minorities to physics PhD programs and increase the PhD completion rates of these groups. This innovative project will, for the first time, investigate how physics faculty approach admissions and student retention. Evaluation data from this project will allow the design of training materials to help faculty use more inclusive practices. Because these interventions are likely to be transferrable to different fields and institutions, the project has the potential to revolutionize how STEM graduate admission is carried out and to increase the completion rates of US citizens in STEM PhD programs.
This project will address graduate STEM education inclusion at both the admission and retention phases. To address access, the project will investigate faculty attitudes and admission measures. Physics faculty attitudes toward diversity, merit, and non-cognitive constructs will be assessed as a measure of change readiness. Participating faculty will then be trained in holistic admissions, a method that is proven to increase diversity in graduate education. The project will develop and validate a non-cognitive assessment tool as part of the holistic admissions packet. To address retention, faculty will be trained on evidence-based support structures that can help new graduate students manage the difficult first years of graduate school. Experimental faculty-centered workshops on admissions and retention will be developed and delivered by the project to four partnering programs at three universities (Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Central Florida, and University of Denver) and then at national meetings hosted by the APS. Formative assessments of these workshops throughout the grant period will be used to revise and refine the materials, resulting in an Admissions and Retention Faculty Training Program that may be used by departments across the country. The APS will curate the resulting materials and help facilitate training during and after project completion, ensuring wide dissemination and sustainable impact of proven practices.
The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The Innovations in Graduate Education Track is dedicated solely to piloting, testing, and evaluating novel, innovative, and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
Note:
When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external
site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a
charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from
this site.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This project developed targeted interventions to help US graduate physics programs increase the access to and retention of US women and underrepresented minorities in PhD physics programs. The project's approach was to train physics faculty in holistic admissions, a method that is proven to increase diversity in graduate education, then produce a standing curriculum that can be used by graduate programs after the end of the project. The curriculum includes training modules on: holistic review; using GRE scores in evaluating graduate applications; using rubrics to evaluate graduate applications; identifying non-cognitive qualities in graduate applications; aligning recruitment and admissions; and systemic change. This curriculum is curated publicly via the American Physical Society's Bridge Program web page.
The project also produced several peer reviewed publications that explored several issues facing the physics community, and which are likely to impact many other disciplines. These included several studies showing that misusing the Physics GRE has a negative impact on broadening participation in physics, both because of the test's score differences by demographics and because of graduate programs? policies regarding their requirement for admissions. For the latter, our work showed that women applicants tend to submit their scores even if the program says they are optional, whereas men applicants only submit their scores if they are very good; this puts women applicants at a disadvantage when test scores are optional. Other studies looked at issues around retention in physics programs. We found that faculty believed that retention could be improved by reforming admissions practices to select for students with attributes critical for success in graduate school, such as resilience. In contrast, the graduate students noted retention was related to systemic or socio-cultural factors that the department could change, such as sense of belonging and work-life balance.
Another study sought to identify qualities of physics graduate students valued by faculty. Results showed that while technical qualities such as content knowledge and programming skills were valued, non-cognitive qualities such as self-motivation, resilience, and self-learning were also highly desired. The faculty noted that while current admissions practices can easily identify if a student has taken certain coursework, they typically lack the means to quickly assess non-cognitive qualities, which must often be inferred from the contents of personal statements and letters of recommendation. The project also developed a tool for assessing non-cognitive competencies. The tool has been adopted by another project, the NSF INCLUDES Alliance: Inclusive Graduate Education Network.
Last Modified: 12/16/2021
Modified by: Casey W Miller
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
