In this dissertation, I present readers with three studies about the ways in which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research experiences impact undergraduate learning, perspectives, and academic/career activities. In the first two studies I focus on this topic by investigating the ways in which undergraduates were impacted…

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center Academy (Hillman Academy) has the primary goal of reaching high school students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds and guiding them through a cutting-edge research and professional development experience that positions them for success in STEM. With this focus, the…

The focus of this research is on Native American students participating in science internships in tribal college and university settings. Drawing on data collected through annual evaluations of two Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) internship programs over a number of years, one at a tribal college and one at a university, the research…

With a strong demand for online education and project management in deeper scope and larger scale to better fit COVID-19 pandemic situation, exploring new knowledge of online education to make it more effective became vital with the new challenges of STEM education. To resolve the above problem, this paper focuses on various aspects of online STEM…

Background: Undergraduate research programs have been shown to have positive effects on student outcomes like retention and academic achievement. This study contributes to the very limited body of causal research on mentored undergraduate research programs (also known as apprentice-style research experiences, or AREs) by measuring the short- and…

Built for More, The Role of OST in Preparing Youth for the Future of Work will highlight OST research and illustrative practices and bring forward multi-disciplinary perspectives about future trends, innovations, and the impact of OST on the future workforce. The focus is on OST programs as well as related activities that contribute to…

In this essay, Mingda Sun, a high school student from Connecticut, recounts her summer research internship opportunity at the Center for Quantitative Medicine of UConn Health. She discusses her learning experiences, the challenges she faced, and the encouragement she received from her mentors and peers and explains how this month-long internship…

Colleges and universities are creating programs to expand Indigenous student participation. This study reports the backgrounds, experiences, and outcomes of students participating in one such program at the University of Colorado Denver, called Environmental Stewardship of Indigenous Lands (ESIL), that offers an academically transcripted…

Despite the adaptive strengths and unique problem-solving skills demonstrated by neurodivergent (ND) individuals, they remain marginalized in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. High unemployment rates among individuals with disabilities emphasize the need for addressing barriers to entry and persistence in the…

Two faculty mentors maintained weekly journals of their experiences supervising three consecutive cohorts of summer undergraduate research interns, with the objective of recording the faculty mentors' experiences and tracking potential transitions in their experiences across time. One common theme was the importance of creating a mentoring team of…

Practicums, internships and field experiences are essential components in many fields. These varied experiences embed both students and their mentors in immersive experiences. Such immersive experiences are essential for STEM students preparing for future jobs, yet little is known about how these research-intensive and immersive experiences impact…

Before the shelter-in-place orders began, Biotech Partners (BP) was already engaged in contingency planning with its school and industry partners in an effort to mitigate potential disruptions caused by the looming health crisis. For 25 years prior, BP had successfully mentored and prepared underrepresented high school students to complete…

Vertical transfer from community college to a university offers a promising, although unrealized, pathway to diversify STEM disciplines. Studying how successful transfer-­receiving universities support STEM transfer students can offer insights into the institutional practices that promote transfer student retention and success. Using institutional…

Guided by the student engagement frameworks, this study sought to identify high-impact practices that show significant relationship with the baccalaureate degree attainment in STEM among vertical transfer students. Our study employed data drawn from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (or ELS, 2002). The sample includes 681 students who…

One-on-one mentoring is effective for helping novices with career development. However, traditional mentoring scales poorly. To address this problem, MentorPal emulates conversations with a panel of virtual mentors based on recordings of real STEM professionals. Students freely ask questions as they might in a career fair, while machine learning…