NSF Award
1835851
The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This project will explore an early-stage, untested intervention aimed at promoting ways to help underrepresented minority students succeed in introductory biology courses and persist in STEM careers. The project will study whether combining team-based geocaching gameplay with near-peer mentoring will help students master content and skills in biology. It will also examine whether or not the intervention will transform students' beliefs and behaviors about science as they take part in problem-based learning activities and content-driven social interactions. The intervention will take place in an out-of-class context to help students develop self-worth and self-direction as part of building a broader STEM community of learners. Near-peer mentors of similar backgrounds as the students will be trained in both academic and social areas to ensure that students gain a deeper understanding of biology and see the relevance of this field to their lives and other STEM disciplines. <br/><br/>The study will take a radically different approach to research by combining theories to examine multiple factors shown to synergistically influence motivation and improve learning for underrepresented students. Through a mixed methods approach, data will be collected and analyzed on both academic and personal factors. Despite these notable aspects of the project, this intervention will have risks. Specifically, it is a novel research topic, and the activities do not include direct day-to-day faculty supervision or regular graded classwork. Additionally, the project will require students to be self-motivated and self-directed to complete the tasks, and will neither guarantee that students will volunteer to participate nor resist social pressures that may prevent them from engaging in the study. Therefore, it is not clear if this study can be done or if it will alter students' academic knowledge and skills or beliefs and behaviors. However, the intervention is potentially transformative in shaping the development of effective models of intervention and reducing the number of underrepresented students who switch to different majors or drop out of STEM fields. These potential outcomes make this project a priority for funding and will contribute to foundational knowledge about STEM education in the ECR program portfolio.<br/><br/>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.
