INVESTIGATING STUDENTS' SOCIAL CAPITAL TO INFORM THE DESIGN OF STRUCTURES TO SUPPORT STUDENT SUCCESS

In this presentation, we report on how our National Science Foundation funded scholarship and research project, Future Geoscientists, is using data to inform the design of structures to support student success. As part of our project, we are collecting longitudinal data on students’ access to different types of social capital (e.g. academic, career, social) to understand how best to successfully support them on their pathway through an undergraduate geoscience career. Using a Design-Based Research approach, we explore the social capital access that students had at the beginning of their undergraduate career and explain how this informed the ongoing design of the project. Data that were collected around student access to social capital included connections with peers, parents, professors, academic advisors and other relevant contacts. Types of social resources that were collected included help with geoscience material, information about geoscience jobs, and choices about courses to take. When considered together, student reliance on academic advisors to make important geoscience decisions coupled with the lack of communication between academic advisors and professors was a particularly concerning aspect of our results. Our project is working on building structures that intentionally connect the work of academic advisors and professors in order to ensure that students have the right information to make key decisions that impact their success in geoscience disciplines.