People like me increasing likelihood of success for underrepresented minorities in STEM by providing realistic and relatable role models

Abstract

Seeing themselves represented in the role models they aspire to, has been shown to be important to students' sense of belonging and success. Underrepresented college students in STEM fields are exposed to only a small set of role models. This set often consist of famous individuals with extraordinary stories (we call these outliers), and represent unfeasible paths to success for a large majority of these students. We aim to remedy this by identifying a set of role models who represent more feasible paths to success (we call these non-outliers) for many underrepresented students. We contend that, despite the less extraordinary success and stories of non-outliers, they share important qualities with outliers. We envision a "People Like Me" website based on profiles of this broader set of role models that can be used as a tool for recruitment and retention. Our current work is to (1) identify role model qualities from the perspective of students, (2) identify and create profiles of non-outlier role models based on these qualities, and (3) test if students are accepting of these nonoutliers as potential role models. We have completed steps (1) and (2), and have found that non-outliers do exhibit the qualities our student sample pool seeks in role models.

People Like Me: Providing relatable and realistic role models for underrepresented minorities in STEM to increase their motivation and likelihood of success

“…The overall study consisted of three parts. The first two parts, described in our previous work, included identifying and verifying the qualities underrepresented minority students seek in role models [11]. The third part of the study, described here, focuses on development and testing of the non-outlier role model pool.…”

“…In previous work, we identified these qualities for a representative sample of underrepresented minority students, majoring in STEM, at a small private liberal arts university. We subsequently used this information to identify individuals who are apt to serve as potential role models with the intention of constructing a pool of non-outlier role models [11]. Here, we describe our approach to and results from testing students' acceptance of the proposed nonoutlier role models pool.…”

“…Based on these results, we are interested in developing and testing a "People Like Me" website at the same institution. This website will contain profiles of non-outliers that we have identified to have the role model qualities desired by our student sample (Achieved Success, Constant Improvement & Resilience, Moral Character, Relatable, and Empathetic & Helpful) which are described in previous work [11]. We are particularly interested in whether this website is useful in recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities in STEM and, in the longer term, whether it may serve as a motivational tool for persisting in STEM careers.…”

Textual comparison of role model and mentor profiles developed to increase participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM

“…Survey response data were input into the tool in a spreadsheet format with the headings and extraneous text deleted. The survey response data have been described in detail in previous publications [5,10,13] and will only be briefly summarized here for clarity. The role model case data includes 10 survey responses (10706 words total) from STEM alumni at a small, private liberal arts university, and the mentor case data includes 29 survey responses (26848 words total) from peer leaders in introductory STEM courses at a large, private research university.…”

“…In an attempt to increase access to support structures for URMs specifically to role models, our previous work focused on identifying what URM students in STEM at a small, private, liberal arts institution valued in role models. Through a series of focus-groups and subsequent qualitative emergent thematic analysis, we identified five qualities (reported in previous work) that were valued by our URM student population [5]. We then surveyed potential role models (university alumni who themselves are URMs in STEM, based on evidence that race-and gender-matched role models may be more effective [6][7][8][9]) and created role model profiles that inherently highlighted the aforementioned qualities.…”