Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60201, USA.
Department of Counseling Psychology, Social Psychology, and Counseling, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, 47306, USA.
Nat Commun. 2022 Nov 11;13(1):6837. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34508-x.
Expanding the talent pipeline of students from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM has been a priority in the United States for decades. However, potential solutions to increase the number of such students in STEM academic pathways, measured using longitudinal randomized controlled trials in real-world contexts, have been limited. Here, we expand on an earlier investigation that reported results from a longitudinal field experiment in which undergraduate female students (N = 150) interested in engineering at college entry were randomly assigned a female peer mentor in engineering, a male peer mentor in engineering, or not assigned a mentor for their first year of college. While an earlier article presented findings from participants' first two years of college, the current article reports the same participants' academic experiences for each year in college through college graduation and one year post-graduation. Compared to the male peer mentor and no mentor condition, having a female peer mentor was associated with a significant improvement in participants' psychological experiences in engineering, aspirations to pursue postgraduate engineering degrees, and emotional well-being. It was also associated with participants' success in securing engineering internships and retention in STEM majors through college graduation. In sum, a low-cost, short peer mentoring intervention demonstrates benefits in promoting female students' success in engineering from college entry, through one-year post-graduation.
几十年来，扩大来自 STEM 领域代表性不足的学生的人才渠道一直是美国的优先事项。然而，在现实环境中，通过纵向随机对照试验来衡量，增加此类学生在 STEM 学术道路上的数量的潜在解决方案一直有限。在这里，我们扩展了早期的一项调查，该调查报告了一项纵向实地实验的结果，其中在大学入学时对工程感兴趣的本科女学生（N=150）被随机分配给一名女性工程同行导师、一名男性工程同行导师或在大学第一年不分配导师。虽然之前的一篇文章介绍了参与者大学前两年的发现，但本文报告了相同参与者在大学期间每年的学术经历，直至大学毕业和毕业后一年。与男性同行导师和无导师条件相比，有女性同行导师与参与者在工程学方面的心理体验、追求研究生工程学位的愿望和情绪健康方面的显著改善有关。它还与参与者通过大学毕业获得工程实习机会和保留 STEM 专业的成功有关。总之，这种低成本、短期的同伴指导干预措施证明了在促进女性学生从大学入学到毕业后一年在工程学方面取得成功方面的益处。
