BreakThru: The Georgia STEM Accessibility Alliance (GSAA)

Nathan W. Moon, Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus

Selected as a Rapid Talk at the NSEC 2016 National Conference

Program Activities Type

Conferences
Workshops

Program Components

Accessibility
Cultural Competency
Mentoring Program
Professional Development:Advising and Mentoring
Professional Development:Diversity/Inclusion
Supporting Students:Professional Preparation

Target Audience

College/University Staff
First-year College Students
Graduate Students
Institution Administration
K12 Students
Undergraduate Majors
Underrepresented Minority Students

Program Point of Intervention

Multiple Institutions

Program Description

BreakThru is a five-year National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project to broaden the participation of students with disabilities in secondary and postsecondary STEM education.

Program Purpose

Considerable attention has been given to the need for educating a diverse work-force in STEM in the U.S. Individuals with disabilities are among the most marginalized of these groups and face significant obstacles and barriers to accessing higher education STEM programs.

People with disabilities comprise 19% of the U.S. population, but less than 10% of its employed scientists and engineers. Students with disabilities represent only 10% of undergraduate, 7% of graduate, and 1% of doctoral-level STEM majors. Key barriers include the challenge of persistence in STEM, issues of inaccessible pedagogy, and negative attitudes. GSAA has sought to investigate the uses of online—especially virtual—mentoring to assist retention and persistence of students in STEM degrees and across critical educational junctures.

Program Goals

GSAA had three stated goals:

  1. Increase the number of secondary students with disabilities enrolling in STEM postsecondary classes and majors.
  2. Increase the retention and graduation of postsecondary students with disabilities in STEM majors.
  3. Increase the successful entry of postsecondary students with disabilities into STEM graduate programs or the STEM workforce.

Program Activities

BreakThru partnered with the Vesuvius Group, LLC, to rapidly prototype a Second Life virtual world suitable for use in electronic mentoring. Linden Labs (Second Life proprietors) sells parcels of 3-D virtual space on their server, called the Grid, as individual islands. Each of these parcels carries an associated annual maintenance cost and provides the owner and designated content managers with free reign over the aesthetics and functionality present in that space. In conjunction with Vesuvius, BreakThru purchased two adjacent spaces on the Grid: one for secondary students and one for post-secondary students. Mentor and mentee participants connect with one another using a wide range of tech-nologies. Participants are introduced to the range of communication methods supported by BreakThru and then allowed to shape their mentoring relationship using whichever tools are most appropriate to their individual needs. BreakThru monitors each dyad and collects data on the chosen method of communication.

Scalable model research has revealed the importance of 1) recruitment resources for participants; 2) processes for matching mentors and mentees; 3) resources to support personnel and ensure quality of mentoring; 3) technology development for mentoring platforms; 4) evaluation resources to document efficacy.

Notes and Tips

Evidence of Success

Over the duration of the project, secondary and postsecondary students participat-ing in BreakThru have experienced improvements in internal characteristics related to persistence in STEM education, as measured by the project's evaluation instruments. Among postsecondary students, all constructs except intention to persist were statisti-cally significant. Of these, gains in self-advocacy were highest, suggesting that e-mentoring activities and targeted modules on improving self-advocacy and putting it into practice have resulted in positive changes in students' internal characteristics. While not as great of a change, self-determination similarly increased over the dura-tion of the project. A more nuanced examination of responses to individual items reveals that students feel more capable of determining their own strengths and weak-nesses, even if do not necessarily feel comfort with the material overall. They show the largest increase when evaluating their ability to check over their work.


Regarding science and math anxiety, results have been somewhat more mixed. Decreases in negative affect have been offset somewhat by decreases in positive affect, making it necessary to examine individual items for a more nuanced interpretation of results.

Future Work

E-mentoring activities at the heart of BreakThru may represent a promising approach for improving student persistence through STEM education and for navigating critical transition points to STEM employment.