Research that studies the experiences of students navigating the challenging intersection of education and student identity has particularly focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, because these fields tend to be ones in which racial minorities, women, and students from socioeconomically disadvantaged background are consistently underrepresented (Huang, Taddese and Walter 2000). Increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups in STEM fields is an excellent strategy, but it is also a strategy that is occurs over a long timeline because it usually begins by getting more students excited about STEM earlier in their educational career and broadening the funnel of STEM-interested students. Researchers have considered many factors that might be used to enhance feelings of belonging for these underrepresented groups and have identified a number of structures and interventions with large impacts, including cohort placement (Sweeder, Kursav and Valles 2021), increasing access to role models and peer mentors (Johnson, Taasoobshirazi, Kestler and Cordova 2014), reducing stereotype threat (Schmader and Hall 2014), increasing access to institutional resources (Ang, Lau, Cheng, Chew, Tan, Shorey and Lau 2022), and introducing psychological “wise interventions,” which change the thoughts students have about the intersection between their identity and their environment (Walton and Wilson 2018). However, most research has focused on how these interventions work in isolation, rather than when strategically scaffolded together. Here, we present background and a case study of a program focused on building resilience through scaffolding of specific structures and interventions that lead to successful retention and graduation of two cohorts of students (referred to as STEM Scholars) through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resilience is “the capacity and dynamic process of adaptively overcoming stress and adversity while maintaining normal psychological and physical functioning” (Wu, Feder, Cohen, Kim, Calderon, Charney and Mathé 2013, p. 259). Colleges across the country have considered how to support student well-being and encourage resilience, which has resulted in some schools adding resilience education into curricular offerings (Nguyen 2019). Even though colleges were already focused on supporting student resilience, the demand to help students build resilience has only escalated in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic (Brown and Kafka 2020). Here, we outline three key strategies we relied on for building resilience in STEM Scholar cohorts, all of whom were from low-income backgrounds and were members of either underrepresented or otherwise historically marginalized communities in the STEM disciplines: (1) creating a sense of social-belonging through community building across cohorts, (2) mitigating threatening identity contingencies and stereotype threat through the use of strategic placement of wise interventions in early shared classes and mentoring structures, and (3) providing role models through peer mentors and programmatic elements. Our approach focused on creating supportive structures that integrated wise interventions into programming.

Both internal and external factors can contribute to the development of resilience (Ang, Lau, Cheng, Chew, Tan, Shorey and Lau 2022). One internal factor that can be developed and enhanced with the presence of wise interventions is cognitive reappraisal. Cognitive reappraisal is a process in which we reframe our thoughts about a particular stressor or type of adversity to be less negative (Wu, Feder, Cohen, Kim, Calderon, Charney and Mathé 2013). Cognitive reappraisal might involve reframing past challenges as opportunities to grow and learn (Hermann, Stewart, Diaz-Granados, Berger, Jackson and Yue 2011) and can be supported through the development of wise interventions designed to encourage students to adopt a growth mindset in the face of failure, setback, or disappointment. These interventions are much smaller, in terms of time and financial cost, than typical interventions to bolster student success and resilience because they involve changing the way we think about a situation, instead of introducing programming or systematic interventions in student experiences. Gregory Walton and Alia Crum (2020, p. 1) describe this approach in the following way:

The “wise intervention” approach is distinct from other traditions and social reforms because it does not rely on improving the objective qualities of situations, such as to hire more tutors … or of people, such as to increase students’ IQ. Instead, the power of wise interventions comes from the rich intersection between psychological interpretations and the contexts in which they arise. Wise interventions recognize that how we make sense of ourselves, other people, and our circumstances does not exist in a vacuum but is a product of the cultural and social contexts in which we live. They then rely on a simple observation: that altering maladaptive or pejorative interpretation, especially at a key time or in an important context, can change how a person engages with the contexts and settings they inhabit. An enormous benefit of this approach is that, in the right circumstances, an initial change in interpretation can become self-confirming.

Wise interventions to increase feelings of belonging in academic settings are inexpensive, easily executed, and have sustained impacts (Walton and Wilson 2018). Wise interventions have received significant attention from the STEM education community because of their ability to increase student diversity in STEM fields and their large benefits relative to their small costs (Walton and Wilson 2018). The present research included three wise interventions that have been studied in academic contexts: growth mindset, social-belonging, and values affirmation. We selected these interventions based on demonstrated outcomes for students who struggle to navigate the intersection between the environment in which they are learning and the social identities that they bring into those environments. Claude Steele (2011) defines identity contingencies as the circumstances and challenges we face in an environment because of our social group membership. For example, a student who belongs to a group that is not stereotypically expected to succeed in school will have a subjectively different experience than a student who belongs to a group that is stereotypically expected to succeed in school, even if both students are in the same environment and have the same academic ability. Steele (2011) argues that threatening identity contingencies can make students feel as though they do not belong in certain educational settings.

Research on stereotype threat, which occurs when threatening identity contingencies create anxiety that hurts task performance, has found that students are aware of the stereotypes other people might have about the different facets of their identity, and this can negatively affect classroom performance (Steele 2011). This finding is consistent for highly motivated students across a range of identities—such as racial minorities on tests of intelligence and women on math tests—due to the anxiety that arises in the face of wanting to disprove negative stereotypes (Steele 2011). While this intersection between academic settings and identity might involve stereotype threat, it is also the case that students who have not had previous experiences or role models in higher education may be less confident in their ability to navigate academic systems. For example, the first-generation college students for whom higher education contexts are new because no other members of their family have attended a 4-year college often struggle with the novel and very individually focused messaging in higher education (Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson and Covarrubias 2012). These first-generation college students tend to thrive more with messages that stress interdependence and connection to others in their family and community (Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson and Covarrubias 2012). Research consistently finds that wise interventions have improved outcomes for students who are facing such challenging identity contingencies.

Growth mindset

Growth mindset encourages students to see intelligence and ability as things that are malleable and can be developed with practice, time, and experience (Dweck 2007). The most effective growth mindset interventions specifically communicate that intelligence and ability can be developed through hard work, help from others, and effective learning strategies, while also communicating that school communities and teachers share a growth mindset (Goyer, Cohen, Cook, Master, Apfel, Lee, Henderson, Reeves, Okonofua and Walton 2019). The objective of the intervention is to help students reframe academic challenges as opportunities to learn and, as a result, is strongly associated with resilience (Yeager and Dweck 2012). In the previous studies, growth mindset interventions have been associated with more enjoyment of academic work and greater academic success for college students (Aronson, Fried and Good 2002), improved academic performance and more motivation for academic work in new junior high students (Blackwell, Trzesniewski and Dweck 2007), improved stress responses, fewer physical illnesses, and improved academic performance for high school students (Yeager, Purdie-Vaughns, Garcia, Apfel, Brzustoski, Master, Hessert, Williams and Cohen 2014), and a reduction in racial achievement gaps for racial and ethnic minority students and first-generation college students (Yeager, Walton, Brady, Akcinar, Paunesku, Keane, Kamentz, Ritter, Duckworth, Urstein, Gomez, Markus, Cohen and Dweck 2016). Growth mindset is powerful because it encourages students to change their interpretation of experiences of frustration and failure; that reframing shapes student coping with those stressors (Yeager and Dweck 2012).

Social-belonging

One external factor related to resilience is social support, which might come from family, friends, teachers, or other supportive adults in the student’s life. Connection to others seems to be critical for managing stress, staying adaptable in changing situations, and feeling that we have the resources required to do hard things (Ang, Lau, Cheng, Chew, Tan, Shorey and Lau 2022). Research has also found that social support can enhance feelings of resilience through both messengers who remind students about the importance of resilience (e.g., a teacher saying that they believe in your ability to learn and grow in response to a setback) and, more importantly, role models for resilience (e.g., watching a friend face a setback and respond positively) in the face of setbacks and stressors (Johnson, Taasoobshirazi, Kestler and Cordova 2014). Role models can be powerful recruiting tools to help students imagine themselves in STEM fields; the underrepresentation of specific racial, gender, and socioeconomic groups poses ongoing challenges in having role models available to students seeking out academic work in STEM fields. While some research has suggested that female role models can make female students more comfortable and successful in STEM fields (Marx and Roman 2002), other research has found that finding role models students relate to is more important than students matching the demographic characteristics of their role model (Cheryan, Siy, Vichayapai, Drury and Kim 2011). For example, women are more likely to believe they can be successful in computer science if they are exposed to role models who are not typical of computer science students (Cheryan, Siy, Vichayapai, Drury and Kim 2011).

It seems likely that wise interventions related to social-belonging can help students develop supportive relationships with role models even if the role models and students do not share demographic characteristics, while also allowing those students to cognitively reframe the challenges they face as being commonly experienced. Social-belonging interventions focus on ensuring students feel like they belong in their academic setting, they are socially connected to others, and their hardships are very common and are not an indicator of a lack of belonging (Walton and Cohen 2007). Social-belonging interventions also normalize the struggles common to academic contexts and help members of negatively stereotyped groups to see those struggles as part of the normal process of navigating academic transitions and not a result of their group identity (Walton and Cohen 2011). Greater feelings of social-belonging are associated with greater student success and positive physical health outcomes (Walton and Cohen 2011). More specifically, social-belonging interventions have been found to increase grade point average (GPA) and facilitate responding to adversity for female college students studying engineering (Walton, Logel, Peach, Spencer and Zanna 2015), to improve physical health outcomes and increase GPA for the 1st year Black college students (Walton and Cohen 2011), and to improve grades and feelings of belonging while also reducing disciplinary incidents for middle school students (Borman, Rozek, Pyne and Hanselman 2019). These interventions work because they change the fundamental thought processes at play when people interpret challenging and frustrating experiences; social-belonging interventions allow students to see challenges and frustration as being about the academic context itself and not a reflection of their abilities (Walton and Cohen 2011). Perhaps most impressively, Gregory Walton and Geoffrey Cohen’s (2011) social-belonging intervention research found that 3 years after the intervention, college students who received a social-belonging intervention reported much higher confidence and certainty in their feelings of belonging, as compared to their peers in the control condition. This finding suggests that this intervention may be a powerful way to increase the retention and success of struggling students.

Values affirmation

Values affirmation interventions ask students to write about important values they hold, which allows students to think about different domains in which they value themselves and to connect their personal values to their academic work (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel and Master 2006). Research has found that values affirmation interventions produce improvement in GPA that lasts for at least 2 years (Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel and Brzustoski 2009), protect against identity threats in the face of adversity (Sherman, Hartson, Binning, Purdie-Vaughns, Garcia, J., Taborsky-Barba, Tomassetti, Nussbaum and Cohen 2013), protect students in the transition from junior high to high school (Borman, Rozek, Pyne and Hanselman 2019), create greater trust with schools by breaking negative cycles of interaction with school authorities and teachers (Goyer, Cohen, Cook, Master, Apfel, Lee, Henderson, Reeves, Okonofua and Walton 2019), and increase the likelihood of entering a college-prep track in high school and going to college (Goyer, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Binning, Cook, Reeves, Apfel, Taborsky-Barba, Sherman and Cohen 2017). Values affirmation interventions have been found to successfully reduce achievement gaps for middle school Black students (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel and Master 2006), middle school Latino American students (Goyer, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Binning, Cook, Reeves, Apfel, Taborsky-Barba, Sherman and Cohen 2017), first-generation college students in STEM courses (Harackiewicz, Canning, Tibbetts, Giffen, Blair, Rouse and Hyde 2014), and for female college students in STEM fields (Miyake, Kost-Smith, Finkelstein, Pollock, Cohen and Ito 2010). Values affirmation interventions seem to prevent a recursive spiral of identity threat and poor performance, in which identity threat causes poor performance which causes more identity threat and so on, because these interventions offer new ways to make sense of struggles and remind students that they are in a context in which their goals and values matter (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel and Master 2006). We hypothesized that students would display increased resilience in the face of stress when they have a strong support structure in place that fostered belonging and connection between cohort members, were rooted in their values, take a growth mindset, and are encouraged to develop feelings of social-belonging. For the typical student, we would expect to see evidence of this enhanced resilience in managing their transition into college. Because we conducted this research at the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic, during which students transitioned from learning in person to learning remotely, we hypothesized that the increased resilience for students exposed to wise interventions would help students navigate disruptions in their educational experience caused by the pandemic.

Methods

STEM scholars scholarship program

Our STEM Scholars program was funded by the National Science Foundation Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Program (NSF S-STEM). This NSF S-STEM program for academically talented students interested in pursuing STEM disciplines is designed to provide low-income students from regions with high dependence on government assistance with scholarships to cover all out-of-pocket college expenses and provide them with the academic, social, and mentoring support required to be successful. Based on institutional data suggesting low-income (defined by the NSF S-STEM grant as students eligible for federal Pell grants), STEM students at our college are less likely to be retained in the first 2 years of academic study, our objective was to develop programming and interventions that would increase the academic success and retention of low-income students in STEM fields early in their college career. Our formal and informal STEM Scholars programming heavily focused on building a supportive cohort community for our students. To this end, students were placed in the same first-semester college orientation course, participated in a mentoring program (Increasing Retention and Inclusion in the Sciences, or IRIS) focused on supporting underrepresented students in STEM, lived in specific STEM-themed housing, experienced ongoing professional development counseling, and were guaranteed funding to support 3 years of summer research or internship opportunities.

In addition to these structural program elements, our work with STEM Scholars involved the administration of a series of wise interventions in the first 2 years of matriculation. We believed that these interventions would not only create feelings of belonging among STEM Scholars, but that they would also create feelings of belonging with the faculty and staff who managed the program and with the idea of being a scientist, in general. Because of these interventions, we believed that we could build student resilience by encouraging students to adopt a growth mindset, by developing a community of students, faculty, and staff to offer social support, and by normalizing struggles, stress, and feelings of failure.

Social-belonging intervention

We conducted a social-belonging intervention designed to enhance feelings of belonging with the STEM Scholar community and other students in the STEM mentoring program (IRIS) for underrepresented students. This intervention came from materials provided by the College Transition Collaborative, which was created by authors of the original research on the positive benefits of social-belonging (Walton, Murphy, Logel, Yeager and The College Transition Collaborative 2017). In this intervention, the facilitator normalized challenges in the transition to college, asked students to reflect on how their belonging had already improved since arrival to campus, and students worked in small groups to share challenges in their transition to college. Finally, our students came together as a larger group to share experiences and to normalize the struggle of starting college. Our specific experimenter script is provided in Appendix 1.

Growth mindset intervention

We next conducted an intervention that taught students about growth mindset and the importance of reframing challenges as a chance to learn. Our intervention was based on the previous research that focused on developing growth mindset in students (Yeager, Walton, Brady, Akcinar, Paunesku, Keane, Kamentz, Ritter, Duckworth, Urstein, Gomez, Markus, Cohen and Dweck 2016). This intervention introduced three ideas: the difference between fixed and growth mindsets, that growth mindsets can be developed, and that growth mindsets can be encouraged in others. At the end of this intervention, students imagined communicating the importance of holding a growth mindset to a hypothetical new student and then discussed their ideas in a small group and then as a large group. Our specific experimenter script is provided in Appendix 2.

Values affirmation intervention

We finally conducted an intervention that asked students to consider how their values impacted their work in STEM. Our intervention is modeled after the work of Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, and Master (2006) and asks students to identify two or three personally important values, identify times those values were important to them, and explain why those values are important to them. Our specific experimenter script is provided in Appendix 3.

Program participants

In Fall 2018, our campus welcomed nine students as our first cohort of STEM Scholars, which included students from rural regions of Arkansas (N = 7), Illinois (N = 1), and Texas (N = 1). In Fall 2019, we welcomed a second cohort of ten new students from the rural regions of Arkansas (N = 6), Louisiana (N = 1), Texas (N = 1), and Mississippi (N = 1). Among our STEM Scholars, 100% (N = 19) were low-income (in this case, that meant they were either eligible for Pell grants or demonstrated significant financial need), 63% (N = 12) were considered racial or ethnic minorities in the sciences, 63% (N = 12) identify as female, and 37% (N = 7) identify as male.

Interview participants

We invited our STEM Scholars (N = 19) to participate in an interview at the end of Spring 2020, and we conducted 14 interviews in the late spring of 2020 (roughly 1 month after students transitioned away from campus due to the pandemic). Of those 14, 50% (N = 7) came from our cohort that started in Fall 2018 (who were sophomores in college), and the other 50% (N = 7) came from our cohort that started in Fall 2019 (who were finishing their 1st year in college). In our interview participants, 29% self-identify as male (N = 4), 71% self-identify as female (N = 10), 43% were White (N = 6), and 57% were students of color (N = 8).

Researchers

Interviews were conducted by a member of our Career Services staff who works closely with the STEM Scholars program. Her structured interview included asking students to describe the STEM Scholars program, the most impactful components of the STEM Scholars program, the ways in which the program had broadened their understanding of careers in science, the ways in which they handled the transition away from campus because of the pandemic, their experiences with STEM Scholars programming that had connected to their values and goals, the things they had learned from successes and failures, what they would tell a past version of themselves about college, and the things that had positively and negatively impacted their college experience.

Analysis

Once the interviews were completed, we began analysis by familiarizing ourselves with the interview transcripts. Two researchers (members of the author team) analyzed the data; after the 14 interviews had been transcribed and checked for accuracy, we engaged in focused coding and constant comparison methods to analyze the 14 interviews, with each researcher independently analyzing seven interviews. We initially engaged in an open-coding system to extract and determine individual themes using evaluative coding and thematic analysis to produce a first draft of our research themes (Saldaña 2012). We engaged in level-two focused coding to build a codebook and synthesize level-two codes. We then named each individual theme and defined what did and did not constitute representation of each theme. We developed the codebook on the basis of agreement after reviewing coding for a small sample of interviews to establish coding reliability. We then met to discuss and determine themes and collaboratively grouped the codes into comprehensive themes. We reviewed all the level one codes and collapsed, collated, and revised the codes to form a cohesive codebook.

Results

We believed that the use of wise interventions with our STEM Scholars, in the context of a program that scaffolded these interventions with enhanced mentoring and advising, would enhance retention, create feelings of belonging, and allow students to reframe threatening identity contingencies. We also hoped that students would learn how to effectively use campus support resources, would feel a meaningful sense of community and social support, and would be more resilient in the face of challenges because of their belief in themselves and their relationships with other students and faculty in this program. When, in March 2020, all students on our campus were sent home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that this situation provided a natural opportunity to do qualitative research to assess the extent to which our program participants navigating this once-in-a-lifetime stressor were influenced by their exposure to wise interventions through our program. More specifically, we wanted to know if students would identify our programmatic focus on growth mindset, social-belonging, and values affirmation as important during their transition while leaving campus, learning remotely, and navigating the many life stressors of this transition period.

Scaffolding of programmatic interventions leads to increased retention and academic outcomes in STEM students from low-income backgrounds. As of Fall 2021, we retained 95% (N = 18) of our STEM Scholars. This is significant because on average, just 20% of low-income students recruited to our campus each year are likely to persist in the sciences on campus. Nationally, of entering low-income students, approximately 67% enroll in early STEM courses in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Math, and Physics (for example, BIOL 150: Cell Biology, CHEM 110/120: General Chemistry, etc.). However, of those students, just 32% go on to graduate with a STEM degree, and 39% fail to graduate all together. Collectively, our college’s 6-year graduation rate for low-income students is 55%. Of all low-income students who do not graduate from our college, 57% of those students started a STEM sequence early in college. Our retention rate suggests that our programmatic interventions have had a large impact on our ability to retain low-income students in the sciences. And, our STEM Scholars have a higher retention rate and grade point average than both our student body as a whole and a comparison group of students composed of incoming 1st year students matched by indicated field of interest and gender distribution who received advising and a shared 1st year experience course but who did not have access to the other benefits of being a STEM Scholar. See Table 1 for retention and GPA data for our STEM Scholars and these two comparison groups.

Table 1 Retention and grade point averages for STEM Scholars and comparison groups
Full size table

Low-income students who received scaffolded interventions and programming display increased resilience, feelings of belonging and inclusion, and have increased ability to take a growth mindset in the face of a global COVID-19 pandemic

The average interview duration for interview participants from our Fall 2018 cohort of students (N = 7) in the program was 35 min, and the average interview duration for interview participants from our Fall 2019 cohort of students (N = 7) in the program was 26 min, which may reflect the fact that our sophomore students could reflect on a much longer experience in college that involved more programming and more experiences to consider when answering interview questions.

The major themes we identified and extracted from the data as being impactful to students were the importance of removing structural barriers, the power of wise interventions, how the STEM Scholars program developed feelings of inclusion and belonging, how the STEM Scholars program encouraged students to seek out help in the face of challenges, and the importance of developing social and emotional skills. We believe that the development of these social and emotional skills came from three different places: participation in an ongoing cohort experience, opportunities as a mentor and mentee in both IRIS and our STEM Scholars program, and connection to the community created by the STEM Scholars program. A full list of themes and subthemes within each theme category are in Table 2 and are discussed below.

Table 2 Full list of themes and subthemes, the number of times they came up in our interviews, and the number of interviewees (N = 14) who mentioned each
Full size table

The importance of removing structural barriers

Many of our students noted the success of the STEM Scholars program in removing bureaucratic, financial, and cultural barriers that might have prevented their success in college. Codes included in this theme involved three things. First, the importance of offering financial support and removing financial barriers (e.g., scholarships, grants or stipends, and financial support for travel), which was raised by 64% (N = 9) of our participants. Second, the value of learning cultural norms and expectations around academic work in college (e.g., faculty and staff clearly communicating expectations, working with offices on campus that are designed to facilitate the transition from high school to college, and working with supportive faculty and student mentors who help them know what to expect in different situations, like summer research), which was raised by 64% (N = 9) of our participants. Third, providing help navigating structural and bureaucratic hassles (e.g., getting credits transferred, navigating paperwork, and scheduling classes), which was raised by 21% (N = 3) of our participants.

Below we share examples of student feedback, where in “…” indicates where quotes have been changed to omit filler words including “um.” One student noted the importance of removing financial barriers to their ability to consider continuing their education, saying

“After having this opportunity…I’ve actually been…persuaded that I…might…want to do grad school now. Because… being able to do [college]…pretty much debt-free…really…opens up another avenue where [I think], ‘Hey, I can continue this and…even if I go into debt for grad school…that’s totally manageable’… now that I have this [opportunity], I can actually see myself…getting…a masters or a PhD.”

Another student explained that the STEM Scholars program had helped them navigate internships and research opportunities, saying

“I think it’s super awesome that y’all are…not only encouraging us to go find these opportunities, but actually…bringing these opportunities to us…Y’all find them and bring them in like, ‘Hey, I think you’d be a good fit for this…you should go do this, you should go apply for this.’…I know from my perspective…[as] a first gen college student, I have no idea how any of this stuff works. So, it would be so incredibly hard for me to find…if it weren’t for y’all helping us...”

The impact of wise interventions

Our use of wise interventions had a uniformly positive impact on our students, and all 14 of the students mentioned at least one of our wise interventions during their interviews. These interventions were so impactful that more than half of our students (eight) mentioned at least three different wise interventions as being important. There were six codes included in this theme that related to a variety of wise interventions, all of which were discussed as part of the STEM Scholars program in both formal programming and informal mentoring.

Combatting imposter syndrome

The first code focused on students learning to navigate imposter syndrome, which occurs when people doubt their own abilities, feel that they do not deserve the opportunities and praise they receive, and worry they will be exposed as undeserving. In this code, we looked for students saying they do not feel smart enough, they do not feel smart as their peers, they know feelings of being an imposter get better, and they openly communicated feeling like an imposter with others. In our interviews, 36% (N = 5) of our participants mentioned this code. One student noted the importance of going through college with a cohort of students studying similar topics for combatting imposter syndrome, saying

“I feel like it’s really fortunate to have…bonds with people that make going through classes a lot easier. It makes understanding concepts…easier. It also makes you feel like you’re not struggling alone…It’s so easy to get discouraged when you’re learning such hard material, in multiple courses…[I] do feel like ‘oh, I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough’, especially when you come from a background where…nobody in your family has an experience in college.”

Professors communicating attainable high standards

The second code centered around professors communicating that they have high standards that they think their students can meet, and it was raised by 7% (N = 1) of our participants. For this code, we looked for descriptions of how professors worked to explain how students can improve their preparation and performance in challenging courses. We also looked for descriptions of classes as being hard and those courses becoming more manageable after the student received support from faculty and other staff.

Learning about the struggles of other students

The third code, which examined the benefits of learning that other students have struggled and overcome their struggles, was raised by 36% (N = 5) of our participants. This code included students describing other program participants or peer mentors who shared their own academic struggles, students describing friends who struggled in the transition to college, and students describing interactions in which others made it feel normal to share struggles in the transition to college. One student noted the importance of seeing other students, particularly older students in the program, struggle and overcome those struggles, saying

“We do have an older cohort, which I’m very lucky to have, they’ve been through…similar experiences and so they can give me feedback to learn…I think having the older cohort has been a game changer because they’ve been through the whole freshman year experience. And they’ve struggled and they’ve had different…teachers. I think we’re able to get advice from them and then learn without having to be challenged in the same way.”

Normalizing stress in college

The fourth code addressed sharing stress with other students and learning that stress in the transition to college and the stress of being in college are both normal. This code was raised by 57% (N = 8) of our participants. For this code, we looked for students describing other students or peer mentors who shared their own social and academic struggles at the start of college, stories about other students who also struggled in the transition to college, and times when other students made it feel normal to share stress. Our STEM Scholars program seemed to be an effective way for students to connect and share stress, according to a student who said

“I definitely like how we meet up and…we can just kind of talk about whatever we’re struggling with. It definitely is like a support group because a lot of the time I feel like I’m the only one that’s like really stressed out or like the only one that’s struggling in some classes and then other people who…I see as very intelligent…more intelligent than I am…when they’re struggling too it makes me feel like I’m also smart…”

Because the STEM Scholars programs normalized discussing struggles and stress and served as a community for social support, students felt uniquely situated to weather the transition away from campus because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020. One student shared

“…the way that the STEM scholars handled this, we had regular meetings once every week or two, where… all of us would join in. And we talked about things that we can do to…keep our mental health intact and…just seeing what everybody’s doing and finding out…what does and doesn’t work for…alleviating the stress that like we’ve all encountered…from being sent home and having to do all of our work online…The STEM scholars group chats really, really helped me keep my…head on straight and keep [my] mental health in check.”

Growth mindset

The fifth code honed in on the presence of a growth mindset and the belief that critical skills are learnable for our students. This included students communicating their belief that academic skills can improve with practice, students describing how what they’ve learned will help them moving forward as they learn more, and students describing their academic skills as improving over time. More than any other code, we saw strong evidence of students developing and using a growth mindset in the face of challenges and setbacks. All of our interview participants (N = 14) spoke about the importance of having a growth mindset and did so multiple times and in multiple contexts during their interviews. When asked about their successes and failures so far in college, one student reflected on their journey in their first 2 years of college as one of growth, saying

“My freshman year definitely was the hardest academically...because I had to learn how to write and also do academic work at college level… From my freshman year to this last spring…I was able to succeed just from learning that I had to work a little harder and also learn how to use resources…I really do believe that other resources that the STEM scholar [program] has provided…helped me a lot through my academics…Personally, it’s helped me…understand that I can fail and I can succeed equally, but I should still be proud of both and not just beat myself up every time I feel like I can’t do it…”

One student described a time when they had to make the decision to drop a challenging elective course and how growth mindset helped them cognitively reframe the decision, saying

“…what I learned…wasn’t that…I shouldn’t try things that are difficult, actually, quite the opposite. I learned that even though I’ve failed, I’ve bettered myself…in the fact that I’ve seen…how much effort I put into something new…It still taught me…a valuable lesson in tackling problems that even though you may fail at them…it’s honestly kind of encouraging to fail because you realize that you’re human…And it’s nice to have…a really good challenge that I wasn’t necessarily good at. Because…it really taught me to… stay humble and understand…how I can better tackle challenges in the future.”

Values affirmation

The sixth code targeted the affirmation of important personal values and seeing STEM education and STEM careers as being connected to those personal values. This was raised by 21% (N = 3) of our participants, and it included students describing important values they hold in thinking about work in STEM, making connections between their studies in STEM and their personal values, and describing the meaning and value of what they are studying for themselves and for the world. Despite the relatively low number of students raising this, we suspect that the connection of personal values to STEM education would increase over the students’ time in college. And, we saw evidence that some students used the STEM Scholars program as a way to connect with their personal values and to think about the values they wanted to bring with them into STEM settings. One student nicely captured this, saying

“…we tackled some hard issues - we talked about…prejudice, microaggressions, racism in the scientific community…and [the] general community alike. And I have always thought of myself as someone that is an ally, to people of color, to people in the LGBTQ+ community. But for me, I grew up in a very privileged bubble…And so coming here and hearing those experiences firsthand, really challenged who I was as a person, as a white person, and also as a woman. And it really challenged me to speak up and stand up for the things that I believed in instead of just silently having these opinions because it’s easy to do. It’s easy to be silent. So the…program really taught me to stand up for women in science, taught me to stand up for people of color in science...it taught me how to be quiet when it wasn’t my time to speak. And it also taught me how to embrace and love people that are from different backgrounds and cultures…it’s challenged me in a lot of ways to reconsider my privilege, reconsider my existence and my background comparatively to others. And I would say that it has reinforced a lot of the ideas that I’ve had, and values I have of equality, of [the] importance towards people of color to make sure that those people feel included, and to educate yourself – I’ve always thought that was important. And I feel like the STEM Scholars program…is a great place to go if you are passionate about those things, and you want to learn more.”

Feelings of inclusion and belonging

Codes included in this theme involve feelings of inclusion and belonging that are related to both the need for interpersonal relationships and the need to feel connected to other people through membership in shared social groups. We developed community belonging through both programming for the STEM Scholars and by encouraging our STEM Scholars to participate in our Increasing Retention and Inclusion in the Sciences (IRIS) Program. The IRIS program included our STEM Scholars and other STEM students from historically underrepresented and marginalized groups. In the IRIS Program, students received training in time management and metacognition skills. Students also learned about careers in the sciences, growth mindset, how our identities can impact our work and experiences, and the importance of community. This program also had an active mentoring component that paired up younger and older students and created opportunities for informal interaction and opportunities to develop leadership skills for our older students.

When assessing feelings of inclusion and belonging, we coded for three things. First, we looked for students’ feelings of inclusion and belonging in the STEM Scholars and/or IRIS communities (e.g., describing a meaningful STEM Scholars community, describing a meaningful IRIS community, and describing membership in STEM Scholars and/or IRIS as being important to their identity in college), which was raised by 100% (N = 14) of our participants. Second, we looked for students’ feelings of inclusion and belonging in science (e.g., describing people in STEM fields as having a meaningful community and describing wanting to be part of a community of scientists and researchers), which was raised by 79% (N = 11) of our participants. Third, we looked for students’ feelings of inclusion and belonging with faculty, staff, and other students involved in STEM Scholars and IRIS (e.g., describing how mentors, staff, and faculty make them feel like they belong, describing how connections with individual mentors enhance their belief that they can tackle challenges they face, and describing connections with mentors as being a large part of their connection to the STEM Scholar, IRIS, or science communities), which was raised by 50% (N = 7) of our participants.

We found strong overall evidence that our programming created feelings of inclusion and belonging for our students. This sense of belonging was present when students were asked to consider their connections to other students, our program faculty and staff, and scientific fields and careers more generally. Students also indicated that the programming and structure of STEM Scholars created an environment in which they felt seen and valued as individuals, which is important to feeling truly included in a community. One student said

“The family environment that we have, no matter what the situation, is the number one priority… It’s never always about academics or athletics or anything extracurricular, [it] is always about us first and I think that’s what stands out [for] me.”

From our interviews, it was also clear that leaving campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic made our students reflect on the importance of belonging in the STEM Scholar community. One student nicely summarized this, saying

“The feeling of togetherness… breeds or builds a community…especially as students want to be…together and be there for each other. You…encouraged us to hang out together, outside of anything that we do STEM-wise, [and] you…encouraged us to study together. So, I think…that encouragement has kind of helped us all bond, whether it was just a sophomore group, just a freshman group or together...I think… this…all ties back into the community thing that [the] group has been able to nurture...From day one, even before we knew we would leave there was always…‘if you need anything, let us know.’ You know, starting from a week before we left, just kind of giving us a heads up to the moment we left, letting us know that there was anything we needed, where there was help moving, a place to stay, help with anything. I think that…it was a great feeling knowing that you had people there…And then even over the course of the time being home, just constant communication and trying to…do different events or being able to video call with [program faculty] and other students…[It] has been great…to have…extra support during this time.”

Students also reported that participation in the STEM Scholars program broadened what they thought of when considering careers in science and that this greater awareness of potential careers made it easier to see themselves as belonging in a community of scientists in the future. One student nicely explained this, saying

“…when I was in high school…I had an interest in science and…mostly focusing in on animals but…looking around like my own community…you really don’t see people who are like me that are doing those things…so I really wasn’t thinking like, ‘Oh, I can have my dream job and be able to do what I love for like the rest of my life.’…Coming into [college]…I now see a broader scope of things in science because there’s so many things that you can do and…for the future I really see myself traveling around the world and working with other researchers.”

Seeking help

Codes included in this theme involved the ways in which students were willing to seek help with a myriad of potential academic and social issues. We were specifically interested in how students reached out to faculty (e.g., reaching out to faculty for help, advice, or going to office hours), other staff on campus (e.g., reaching out to Academic Success for help, reaching out to Career Services for help), and other students (e.g., reaching out to friends and other students for academic or social help, going to peer tutoring, and taking advantage of access to peer mentors) for academic or social support. In our interviews, 93% of participants (N = 13) mentioned the value of seeking out faculty assistance, 43% of participants (N = 6) mentioned the value of seeking out assistance from other staff on campus, and 79% (N = 11) mentioned the value of seeking out help from other students. When considering help seeking, we saw evidence that students perceived STEM Scholar program structures as being conducive to reaching out for support as they navigated the transition into college. One student also noted that this was particularly valuable given that the STEM Scholars program supports students from historically underrepresented communities, saying

“To give people a chance that would normally be underrepresented, and give them that extra support that they need, like being that they are underrepresented in STEM, being that they…might not feel as supported in just regular academic environments in college…[program faculty] just really assist with everything…They assist with the transition from like home life to college life, they assist with…new ways of studying, they give you opportunities to gain extracurricular experience.”

Thankfully, students felt the support they received when they left campus because of the pandemic grew naturally out of the relationships they had already developed, which made it easier to seek out help. One student said

“I do know that the STEM scholar group, and especially in our leaders in the group, like the mentors, the people that run the scholarship program…they’re always actively checking on us…I remember from the first day that we left…when we were moving out that day, we had to be out by like five. And [one program faculty member] was already texting and calling everyone individually just making sure that we were okay making sure we didn’t need any help moving out and make sure we had everything we needed. Then as soon as we got home like the next day, within the next two days, she’d sent out…messages saying like, ‘just checking on everyone.”…Making sure that we’re constantly updated…[and] taking the time out to…make sure that we…don’t feel scattered… we still feel like everything is intact, and we’re going to move forward. They really took charge and gave…the STEM scholars insight on what’s going on and how to kind of cope with it.”

To examine student willingness to seek help, we also coded for evidence that students were learning to see setbacks as temporary (e.g., describing setbacks as something they learned from, describing the future in a way that assumes the same setbacks won’t be a problem going forward, describing their improving grades as reflective of their increasing study skills), to seek out help and not deal with hard things alone (e.g., pushing back against their tendency to not ask for help, reaching out for help even when it was challenging, not asking for needed help before coming to college, and learning they should ask for help), and demonstrated feelings of self-efficacy (e.g., students feeling like they are prepared to tackle the stressors and challenges they are facing, describing themselves as being up to the challenge of their academic work or transitions to college life). In our interviews, 57% of participants (N = 8) mentioned thinking of setbacks as temporary, 29% of participants (N = 4) mentioned knowing they should not struggle alone, and 50% (N = 7) described themselves as feeling ready for the challenges they faced. These ideas are all related to the ability of wise interventions to help students cognitively reframe their reactions and responses to stressors in ways that support resilience.

Students reported getting feedback from STEM Scholar program faculty who encouraged them to reframe challenges as opportunities for learning and to see setbacks as temporary. One student said

“I had a lot of conversations with [a program faculty member] that would be really helpful and insightful. So just trying to get…grounded…and learn that there will come times where I’ll be knocked down. But I have to realize that sometimes a lot of those situations are temporary. And, you know, I have to stay level-headed to be able to continue to do…the things that I’ve been doing.”

Through our STEM Scholars program, which regularly encouraged this kind of help seeking, students also learned to rely on their support network of faculty, staff, and peers. One student nicely summarized this, saying

“I’ve learned that it’s okay to…rely on the group and…ask for help...I would tell myself as a freshman, try to listen to the people that are trying to help you…try to take the help that people are giving you and don’t try to do everything by yourself because it’s not like in high school…it’s okay to have help with things...”

Development of social and emotional skills

Codes included in this theme involved students developing their awareness of their emotions and the needs and emotions of others. These social and emotional skills include vulnerability, empathy, communication, resilience in navigating stress, and accepting and providing social support. While we did not specifically use interventions designed to develop these skills, students spontaneously raised these skills as having been developed in our STEM Scholars community through their mentoring opportunities and cohort connections. We specifically looked for four things when coding this theme. First, students discussing the development of their empathy and having a greater ability to take the perspectives of others (e.g., looking at things in a new way or from a new perspective, feeling concern for others, and looking at the same problem from different vantage points over time), which was raised by 36% (N = 5) of our participants. Second, students demonstrating awareness of how to get emotional and social support (e.g., reaching out for help navigating their emotions, describing social support offered by other students, and describing social support offered by faculty or staff), which was raised by 21% (N = 3) of our participants. Third, our students’ perception of their ability to provide emotional and social support to others (e.g., supporting friends who reach out for help navigating their emotions and sharing their experiences about the transition to college to help support other students in that same transition), which was raised by 7% (N = 1) of our participants. Fourth, students perceiving the development of their leadership skills (e.g., describing improvement in their leadership skills and describing how working with others has made them more interested in playing leadership roles in the future) which was raised by 14% (N = 2) of our participants.

Students talked about the value in learning from people with different experiences as part of their time in the program. One student described this beautifully, saying

“I love our STEM Scholars group, because we are so diverse, not only in race, but…social background, economic background, like family dynamics is very different when it comes to each person. And so being able to hear everybody’s backstory, you kind of get a different perspective and you kind of…try to…empathize with…their backgrounds…[and] learn about…where they came from, how they got here, and what they’re currently dealing with… I think that helped me personally be more compassionate towards like everyone, because…at the end of the day, we really don’t know where people are coming from…Ultimately, we were able to understand that we are not all the same, but that…makes us a very good unit.”

Students also discussed how the emotional support from peers helped them to cope with the challenges and stress brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. One student said

“…it was really tough for me…coming home because my parents still expected me to…be doing a lot of chores… or…taking care of my grandma…It was really tough, so it was really good to know that…I still had…a family in the community that I could…text to…forget about COVID and stuff.”

Discussion

Underrepresentation of racial minorities, women, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students has been an ongoing challenge in STEM fields. This is a problem for many reasons, including the challenges of finding role models when there are few people who share underrepresented identities in positions of power and authority. Underrepresentation is also a problem because if we say that we value diversity, there should be actual diversity in our schools, workplaces, and organizations. Above and beyond the strong moral value that we place on the importance of creating inclusive and diverse spaces, research has found that diverse groups are more creative in problem-solving (Maddux, Adam and Galinsky 2010) and that diverse groups make better decisions because they use more information and more thoughtfully consider alternatives in identifying solutions (Galinsky, Todd, Homan, Phillips, Apflebaum, Sasaki, Richeson, Olayon and Maddux 2015). Thus, if we want science education, science research, and policy-making based on science to be the best it can be, diverse groups of people must have a seat at the table.

The previous research has found that the consistent underrepresentation of women, racial minorities, and students with high financial need is, in large part, due to threatening identity contingencies. These threatening identity contingencies make high-achieving and strongly motivated students worry they will be asked to represent everyone who shares their identity and, as a result, cause those students to feel the need to be hypervigilant in any situation in which their behavior might reinforce negative stereotypes. The anxiety produced by this worry and hypervigilance, the challenging nature of finding role models, and subtle manifestations of bias based on facets of our identities all contribute to the loss of STEM students from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. Thankfully, research on wise interventions offers us a strategy to help students reframe stressful situations in a way that minimizes the negative impact of threatening identity contingencies.

Wise interventions are powerful because they do not require the individual facing the threatening identity contingency to change themselves and they do not require that entire school contexts be transformed as an entry point to changing peoples’ experiences. Wise interventions work by giving students the tools to reframe challenges in a more positive (or, at least, less negative) way, which changes students’ engagement with their schools in the face of stress and challenges. Because of the strong evidence for the effectiveness of wise interventions, we created a STEM Scholarship program centered around wise interventions in both formal programming and informal interaction in the hopes that this structure would have a positive effect on our college students from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups.

Through our participant interviews, we found strong evidence that our programming which was built around wise interventions supported students in a variety of positive ways, ranging from academic performance and retention to social connection and resilience. The retention of students in our STEM Scholars program has been exceptional when compared to both our overall college retention numbers and retention of other students interested in STEM disciplines with high financial need. In addition to excellent retention, our STEM Scholar participants have demonstrated high levels of academic success, in terms of student G.P.A., compared to their college peers.

Our student participants described our STEM Scholars program as creating strong feelings of belonging and inclusion, which made it easier for students to share their struggles, combat imposter syndrome, seek out help when needed, and to feel like the challenges in the transition to college were normal and not a reflection of the students’ identities or abilities. This feeling of community belonging also translated into greater student resilience by ensuring students had both the social support they need when facing adversity and regular role models for resilience in the faculty, staff, and other students involved in the STEM Scholars program. Students in our program reported willingness to seek social support, awareness of how to use campus support resources effectively, and confidence they could receive help from the faculty, staff, and other students involved in the program. We believe that this social support made our students more resilient in the face of challenges because of their belief in themselves and their relationships with other people involved with the STEM Scholars program.

In their interviews, all of our STEM Scholar students shared that they had a stronger awareness of and belief in growth mindset because they participated in our STEM Scholar program. In addition, student growth mindsets were connected to students being able to positively reframe their thoughts in the face of challenge to see failures as opportunities to learn and not as indicators of low ability or limited potential. Because of this positive reframing, students were also more comfortable asking for help and social support from faculty, staff, and peers. This happened because students were able to see the challenging situations that elicited the need for help as reflecting their ongoing learning as students.

Participation in our program gave students an enhanced ability to connect their personal values and academic work, which let students more easily imagine themselves as scientists and researchers in the future. Participation also enhanced our students’ Social and Emotional Learning, particularly related to the development of empathy, perspective taking, and the abilities to both give and receive social support.

Our interviews provide strong evidence that the positive foundation built by wise interventions contributed to our STEM Scholars’ resilience in the face of the stressors caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The STEM Scholars program seemed to increase resilience in our students because it gave them a supportive community to lean on when facing the novel stressors of leaving campus mid-semester, learning online, and navigating stress and illness caused by the pandemic. Wise interventions also benefitted our students during the pandemic because those interventions taught students to reframe struggles and stressors—which became more common for everyone during the pandemic—as being normal and not a reflection on their academic skills or abilities. Given that all students’ lives occasionally contain large, unpredictable stressors that affect them at school, programs, and activities that help students develop the skills to respond in a resilient way to those stressors are of critical importance. Our STEM Scholars program provides an excellent example of why wise interventions are a wise investment of time and energy for schools and educators.