Yes, that's the trick isn't it.  Our research team has created and are currently validating an instrument to use with the pilot group of rising college freshmen.  Our first contact with them is happening now as we select the pilot participants.   But what has been really valuable so far has been listening to current FGCS who are an important part of our steering committee.  Their insights  and their desire to contribute to solving the problem have been that "just in time data" that we need to modify and rethink some of our approaches.

Hi, Jeanne. Our team is working madly to get IRB approval for our preliminary survey of freshman and sophomore rural and non-rural first-generation STEM students in several WV colleges. Subscales focus on reasons for STEM entry, challenges to STEM persistence in college, STEM efficacy, rural identity, place attachment, and vulnerability to rural stereotype threat. We're also surveying STEM faculty to get a sense of their perspectives on rural first-gen students.

In terms of outcomes, the most distal is year to year re-enrollment. But we also hope to conduct regular (weekly? monthly?) quick check ins with students in our project about how they're feeling in terms of efficacy and their likelihood of persistence to the next semester. At intervals, we also want to check in on the development of a STEM identity and whether/how these experiences are interacting with their sense of being rural. Finally, we are interested in how students make connections between their STEM interests and their interest in contributing to their communities.

Thanks so much for your response. One thing to consider as you move forward is the difference between STEM and S, T, E, and M. In our work in K-12 we found that our measures perform better when we ask about the disciplines separately (when it comes to things like self-efficacy and interest, for example). It makes sense of course - mathematics, science, engineering and technology (however students define technology in their minds are all very different. We also found in questionnaires given to high school students that their definitions of "STEM" were highly varied. So, that may be something to explore during your check ins and as you move forward with your instrument development. Looking forward to watching this work move forward!

That's a really helpful point! And I think it has some immediate implications for how we phrase items on our preliminary surveys (not to mention later data collection efforts). Thanks!

Thanks for sharing this experience Jeanne regarding content-specific measures. We focus on computer science and our instruments are specific to this area of STEM, so your comment was re-assuring.

First I should say that unlike many pilots that have been building a network for a number of years, First2 is starting at ground level with an identified problem, and a shared desire in solving it.  At the end of the video you can see who makes up the core group. Beyond the core group which is diverse and substantial, we are actively adding stakeholders to our network through-out the launch phase.

Here's how we know we're on the right track:  No-one has dropped out, and the network is growing fast!  As we publicize our work to colleges and departments who are just learning about First2; as we tell our FGCS about the program, and what we are up to, we are getting immediate buy in. FGCS in particular are stepping in to fully participate as  leaders, planners, and makers. Clearly this means we have an important problem to solve.  I'm very interested in hearing from those folks who have been using the Collective Impact approach. We are learning tons from going to the INCLUDES conferences!

As for the approaches we have identified and are piloting,  first we are surveying stakeholders  in our state beyond our core groups of colleges and universities to determine the level of "agreement" between our ideas on improving persistence in STEM, and theirs. Members of our our team will participate in a guided "Data Driven" workshop to evaluate our approaches in light of this data.

First we note that their is very little - really no literature  that combines: persistence in STEM in the first 2 years of college + rural students + first generation college students. So there is a need for a research program. The research plan uses a mixed methods approach (pre-post validated surveys  for students and faculty based on prior work; case studies; focus groups, and extant data from the state colleges who are part of the pilot). Currently we have expanded our core team to include 5 current FGCS from WV. Through our normal planning meetings they have helped to shape the construction of our plan moving forward.

Hi Joni, I apologize for the sound quality issues, as I am a complete novice in video production. Glad you like our project, and please ask about anything that was difficult to glean from the video. We are happy to have your perspective!

Thanks for all of the details, Sue! It seems that with such wide outreach, you will have a lot of variables to consider when it comes time for your analysis. What extra steps are you taking to enroll non-traditional students in your program? As time goes on, I'd be interested in learning what the gender and racial/ethnicity outcomes are. Good luck!

All of the colleges who are working on the pilot with us are using their incoming freshmen enrollment lists to send out recruiting information to their incoming freshmen. In most cases, working with the enrollment offices  we can sort  these students  by criteria to target first gen, non traditional, rural.   This includes community colleges which enroll more non-traditional students.

Our pilot includes a two-week summer internship for freshmen before they start their first semester. We know that no matter how attractive that might be, even 2-week residential internships can be tough for non traditional students to participate in- IF they are not located near the towns where they live.  In order to make this type of program accessible to all rural FGCS, we need to develop more internship opportunities, than the 2 we are starting with in our pilot.

Hi Sue. Many thanks for the added details. This is a great project and I wish you great success!

Hi Janice, Thank you for the comments. You allude to two biggies that we gleaned form the literature and also from talking to FGCS in West Virginia.

Culture shock relates  to us in that rural students place high value on self-sufficiency and community interdependence, community and family cohesion, and these values can be at odds with those at large post secondary institutions.

But a big take away from the lit is that socio-economic status beats just about everything, as an obstacle to student success. If you have to combine work with college, you have less time to integrate into the academic culture.  As a FGCS you are also less likely to obtain financial aid, scholarships, or use student support services, because neither you or your family has experience navigating the higher education culture. 

 The literature also points toward some best practices that improve persistence in STEM, and we are implementing activities  such as early STEM research experiences, "Freshman seminar" that integrate soft skill development with STEM work, develop relationships between the students and STEM faculty, and a firm commitment to building agency in our students. The students, better than anyone will be able to articulate the problems as they encounter them, and shape the changes that need to take place.

Who will we convince families?  The Student Ambassadors not only reach down and offer a hand to younger kids but also  meet with local civic  and business leaders as new leaders who understand local context,  who major in STEM in order to make their community better,  and who love their community while valuing Science, Math and college.    I think we can win the hearts and minds of our families. That's the hypothesis. As ambassadors, our students will receive recognition in their home-towns. We love to be proud of our kids, and feel shared pride no matter whose kid it is.

GREAT questions! In regards to the literature on first gen students, we're very familiar with it, and are including its key findings in our efforts (e.g., building knowledge about how to navigate through college structures, for example, is particularly important for first gen students--so we're building in a support network so rural first gen students can share experiences/insights and mentor each other).

But there's some research suggesting that, in addition to the usual suspects making things challenging for first gen students, there are some particular issues that rural students face. These include acculturative stress; tension between attachment to place and the need to go elsewhere to pursue college and/or career; lack of experience with large institutions and places; underestimating the need to build new relationships; lack of solitude and access to nature; and higher rates of employment in college among rural vs. nonrural students. So we're deliberately focusing on those issues as well as those that challenge first gen students in general.

One way we hope to help students preserve rural identity and place attachment is by engaging them immediately in STEM research opportunities that are place-based. For instance, students at one of our sites will work on solar energy research; given the decline (and depredations) of coal mining in WV, finding other means of energy and employment is really crucial. So, connecting the doing of science to places/communities students care about is key to our work.

Our design is also user-centered, which helps keep us grounded in rural first gen students’ experiences. We have a rural first gen student advisor, and many of our team members were rural first gen STEM students themselves. So we’re honoring their particular knowledge and insights by incorporating them into project design. Course modules and internship camps offer us opportunities to engage students in frank conversations (and problem solving) around their experiences as they encounter college. At the same time, we recognize that rurality is not a deficit by any means, and there are rural strengths that we want to engage—strong community support networks (although in some places, communities have been hit so hard that social capital is jeopardized); “small town charm” arising from understanding that everyone needs everyone in a rural place; an ethic of care for land and place; work ethic or sense of adult responsibility arising from work on a family enterprise or from self-provisioning activities such as farming, hunting, fishing, and building; among many others.

In terms of helping families understand that they haven’t lost their college-going children, we haven’t yet thought deeply about that. But you raise a terrific point, and I hope we find a way to address that issue. Thank you!

Hi Suzanne, This is Sue Ann, another team member on the project. Just watched your video, and it seems like our projects are peaches and plums in a pie if not peas in a pod! I really really  like the way you  focus on students' lived experience.  I'm going to do some reading on collaborative inquiry! Love the way you articulated that in the video. We really do believe that  we won't solve the obstacles to persistence without the full participation of the students.

For the pilot we are engaging  ~30 rising freshmen FGCS, and ~ 5 rising sophoomre FGCS  in  a 2-week summer science research experience at one of two locations, a small university in the state or a FFRDC here in WV. In either case the students will be in residence, and the experience will have a hefty component of co-hort/team building.

That will be followed by an alternative to a typical freshmen seminar, that meets weekly to in order to engage students in learning and practicing skills within the context of their STEM coursework.  Since the students will be attending 4-5 different schools, the meetings will be facilitated locally but  be connected online.  We are developing some of these sessions ahead of time; but plan on many sessions being steered by the students "lived experience" to steal your phrase. In concert with all of this is the development of a really robust research plan to better understand the FGCS STEM major and the rural FGCS STEM major.

And the final  student engagement piece is what we call the "hometown ambassador" to reconnect our students back to the place that matters the most to rural students and that is their home community.

I think we should stay in touch! This is a hard medium in which to chat, but SO glad you reached out.  I'm not the only one, I see from your video comments that one of our team independently commented on your project too (Erica Harvey)