National Science Foundation Grant Aims to Retain STEM Students

Sarah Rose Cavanagh, Senior Associate Director for Teaching and Learning in the Center for Faculty Excellence, was recently awarded a four-year $496K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cavanagh and her Co-Principal Investigator, Michele Lemons of Assumption University, were previously awarded an “incubator” grant for this project, and have now received the full award.

The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency supporting science and engineering across the United States and U.S. territories. Since Congress established NSF in 1950, it has been dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of national health, prosperity, and welfare, as well as securing national defense. The mission is fulfilled through investing in grants, which, according to the NSF website, “account for about 25% of federal support to America's colleges and universities for basic research.” The NSF supports research that is both solutions-based and inspired by curiosity, knowing that each may provide advancements to benefit the American people. 

“The incubator grant was about developing a network,” says Cavanagh, noting that these are part of a line of NSF grants intended to facilitate development of networks across institutions, creating collaborative connections between faculty in different institutions, as opposed to funding particular research projects. “The hope is that those connections will work together to solve problems in our fields.” Twenty-five faculty from different institutions contributed to the incubator project, and this full grant will expand that pool. The network includes a blend of pedagogical scholars like Cavanagh and biology educators like Lemons, to intentionally combine knowledge about teaching innovations with a deep understanding of the particular challenges inherent to teaching and learning biology.

Cavanagh wanted to tackle high attrition rates in biology education at the undergraduate level — that is, the high number of students who start out intending to major in a STEM field and then switch majors — by improving teaching practices. “But first, we had to get a sense of what biology professors were doing — assignments to measure student learning, feedback given on assessments like exams, and grading — and where faculty felt they needed the most improvement.”

Cavanagh and her co-PI surveyed almost 300 professors of introductory biology courses, including hour-long interviews of 27 of those professors from a diverse array of backgrounds and types of institutions. “What we heard was that they really wanted to improve the timeliness and usefulness of feedback on assignments and assessments. So that is what we are focusing on for this four-year grant.” 

Building an Ecosystem of Feedback

To understand the importance of prompt and useful feedback in this area, Cavanagh cites what she calls the “weed-out culture” prevalent in biology and other STEM fields. The grant proposal, “RCN-UBE: Transforming Learning and Equity in UBE [Undergraduate Biology Education] by Cultivating an Ecosystem of Feedback (TUnE-BIO),” describes this as “high-stakes, objective assessments with little feedback and opportunities for revision.” 

Cavanagh explains, “this high-stakes approach tends to disproportionately negatively impact women, students marginalized on the basis of race and ethnicity, and first-generation students. A number of students coming to college to study biology, nursing, medicine, or engineering take their introductory courses and then switch majors. There is a large attrition rate away from the STEM fields.”

While Cavanagh notes that part of that attrition is the natural process for students to find their true passions during their undergraduate studies, Cavanagh’s research reveals that there is more to the story. “Research shows that poor grades in introductory courses can change a student’s mind, especially if they do well in other courses. We want people to study their passions, not just go where their grades are pointing them.” Further, these attrition rates are higher for members of underrepresented groups.

“Improving student performance can decrease weed-out,” says Cavanagh. “We see the most potential for improvement in addressing the quality of feedback professors give to students about their work.” 

Timeliness is a pivotal issue; assignments in these introductory courses are often stacked, such that a student doesn’t discover how they did on an assignment until weeks after submission (due, mostly likely, to the volume of assignments to be graded). By that time, they may already be falling behind. As one faculty member stated (anonymously) during the qualitative study: “When I was learning to sing, if I had to record myself, then mail it off somewhere, and then wait two weeks to find it if I was on key or not . . . I would never learn to sing at that rate, which is sort of the way I learned biology.” Volume and frequency of feedback, opportunities for revision based on the feedback, and encouraging or discouraging tone are also key aspects of effective feedback.

The Value of a Diverse Workforce

Further, as the grant proposal states, “The world needs more STEM graduates to meet escalating global challenges such as climate change and new infectious diseases. Attrition rates are high for all STEM fields, but highest for members of underrepresented groups.”

Educating a diverse workforce is important for any field, given the richness that multiple perspectives can bring to the table. Students already interested in STEM fields who require more guidance and feedback could be a boon to the field — and to their college classrooms. As the proposal reads: “Students from marginalized identities and first-generation college students are most likely to benefit from these practices but are least likely to encounter them in the classroom. For this reason, the overarching goal of this project is to improve instructional practices in ways that help recruit and retain a diverse and educated STEM workforce.”

Creating Resources and a Community

The first half of the four-year grant period will focus on developing a toolkit of “feedback-enhancing” workshops and resources that biology professors can download for free. The current network, which includes (from the proposal): “biology professors, psychologists, scholars of pedagogy, and educational specialists from across the country,” will be expanded through this process. Working groups will meet in Boston in 2025/26 to improve these resources. 

The second half of the grant period will focus on the formation of regional hubs, binding together different universities to share resources, host local events, and collaborate on using the toolkit resources. The work will provide professors with “appropriate, readily available tools and assist in their dissemination around the country.”

How Students Can Get Involved

“We’re hoping to involve graduate students in the research, specifically in the larger network,” says Cavanagh. “We want to engage with people who are on their way to being the next generation of instructors, maybe including some trainees in the hubs. We will explore opportunities for undergraduates, too.” Cavanagh plans to involve faculty from the Simmons Department of Biology; as she launched the incubator phase of this research while at another institution, this will be her first chance to involve Simmons faculty. “We have a lot of excellent faculty in the Department of Biology. I hope to work with them!”

Cavanagh notes that there are several other STEM-focused research projects underway on campus, including a substantial grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to support students who have been historically excluded from STEM-related disciplines. Another project was funded by NASA to support women and minority STEM students. “There is a growing synergy here at Simmons, focused on equity and STEM education,” notes Cavanagh. “I’m hoping we can collaborate.”

Paul Geisler, Dean of the School of Sciences and Health Professions, says, "Dr. Cavanagh's research aligns perfectly with our existing STEMEd@Simmons initiative and existing programs. Their focus on biology-specific feedback and assessment strategies will complement our NASA DREAM_WSTEM and HHMI projects, which aim to bolster STEM confidence, identity, and social capital among undergraduate students, while also promoting DEI in our faculty development, pedagogical approach, and curriculum redesign. By incorporating these new strategies into our STEM Core Competencies and Enrichment Program, and existing experiential learning and research programs, we can create a more inclusive and supportive environment for all STEM majors, better meet the University’s mission, and contribute to greater equity and representation in the STEM industries and professions."

Advice for STEM Students

What advice does Cavanagh offer for students currently struggling in their chosen studies? 

“They should reach out to the Tutoring Center, and definitely visit their professor during office hours,” she says. “Science is about creating a hypothesis and trying to test it, which might mean doing the lab wrong three times before you do it right. It’s natural to get discouraged.” 

Cavanagh encourages students to accept that there may be some discomfort. “Try to embrace that discomfort of not-knowing and keep trying,” she says, calling on a research study done at Tufts. “If you really want to study science, you have to embrace the discomfort of not knowing.”

How much discomfort can a student expect? “It’s easy to sit in class and think, ‘I’m the only one who feels this way.’ We encourage teachers to have conversations with students about their emotions during the process of learning in order to normalize this discomfort and show that they aren’t alone.” 

“If you are falling behind, it’s not a sign that you aren’t meant to be a biologist or a chemist. It’s a challenge, not a threat. See it as a way to motivate yourself. When you give students some psychoeducation around how common these feelings are and why these feelings might be a sign you are doing science right rather than wrong, students can view these challenges as a way to improve upon their performance. A challenge is something to rise to, not to shrink from.” 

A mindset shift can help; as can accessible, timely feedback. As another faculty member stated in the qualitative interview, the value of feedback to a student is “to show [students] the potential that they have.”

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