Overview
A research study focused on a talented and important segment of the university student population: rural and small-town students in STEM fields.
Rural students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees often face unique challenges as they navigate academic and career pathways far from home, with fewer built-in opportunities for mentorship, peer connection, or institutional support. Still, many of these students bring strong social networks to college that may play a critical — but understudied — role in their persistence and success. This project, ROOTS (The Rural-Undergraduate Origins, Opportunity, and Social Ties Study), examines these issues by investigating the links between persistence in STEM career pathways and social support networks among rural STEM university students.
Prior research suggests that rural university students have distinct, resource-rich social support networks that are important to STEM success. Little work, however, details these networks within universities or their possible connections to rural students’ STEM career persistence.
How will we study this?
Building on tools we have used in ongoing studies, this investigation will advance knowledge of the characteristics that make rural STEM student support networks unique, how these networks relate to STEM career persistence, and how students perceive these issues in their daily lives. Findings will also significantly contribute to knowledge about the role of social support networks in strengthening and broadening student STEM workforce pathways more generally, thereby helping to build new theories that support students’ STEM career development.
Using social network analysis and social capital theory, we are administering two online surveys, 18 months apart, to a panel of rural and nonrural STEM students across 11 public universities in Wisconsin (initial n~1,000). At each of these two data collection points, we are also conducting interviews with a subsample of rural and nonrural STEM survey respondents (initial n~50). Using descriptive statistics and regression models to analyze survey data and qualitative coding to analyze interviews, the project will map rural student networks and trajectories between the two phases, examine links between networks and STEM career persistence, compare rural and nonrural student networks and STEM persistence, and capture the personal perspectives of rural university students on these issues.
Results will be disseminated through presentations, reports, scholarly publications, and public media to ensure a wide array of stakeholders have access to the findings.
This project is supported by NSF’s EDU Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad, and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments; broadening participation in STEM; and STEM workforce development.
Learn more about this project
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Award No. 2500325. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.