Development of a Distance Education Program by a Land-Grant University Augments the 2-Year to 4-Year STEM Pipeline and Increases Diversity in STEM

<div><p>Although initial interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is high, recruitment and retention remains a challenge, and some populations are disproportionately underrepresented in STEM fields. To address these challenges, the Microbiology and Cell Science Department in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Florida has developed an innovative 2+2 degree program. Typical 2+2 programs begin with a student earning an associate’s degree at a local community college and then transferring to a 4-year institution to complete a bachelor’s degree. However, many universities in the United States, particularly land-grant universities, are located in rural regions that are distantly located from their respective states’ highly populated urban centers. This geographical and cultural distance could be an impediment to recruiting otherwise highly qualified and diverse students. Here, a new model of a 2+2 program is described that uses distance education as the vehicle to bring a research-intensive university’s life sciences curriculum to students rather than the oft-tried model of a university attempting to recruit underrepresented minority students to its location. In this paradigm, community college graduates transfer into the Microbiology and Cell Science program as distance education students to complete their Bachelor of Science degree. The distance education students’ experiences are similar to the on-campus students’ experiences in that both groups of students take the same department courses taught by the same instructors, take required laboratory courses in a face-to-face format, take only proctored exams, and have the same availability to instructors. Data suggests that a hybrid online transfer program may be a viable approach to increasing STEM participation (as defined by enrollment) and diversity. This approach is particularly compelling as the distance education cohort has comparable grade point averages and retention rates compared to the corresponding on-campus transfer cohort.</p></div

Distribution of races and ethnicities for the Fall 2014 enrollment in the Microbiology and Cell Science major within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

<p>Racial/ethnic groups who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields are in blue while those groups who are not underrepresented in STEM are in green. The proportions of individuals with two or more races, nonresident aliens, or race unknown are represented in shades of gray.</p

Retention of transfer students who enrolled in the Microbiology and Cell Science major within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences in Fall 2011 and Fall 2012.

<p>Retention equals the proportion of students who have graduated and persist in the program. Retention levels between the two cohorts are not statistically different (p = 0.10, two tailed Fisher's Exact Test).</p

Box plots representing the average grade point average (GPA) of MCS majors within CALS.

<p>The horizontal lines represent the median GPA of students in the Fall 2013 semester (left box plot) and at the time of graduation (right box plot). The boxes represent the interquartile range (IQR). The IQR includes the 50% of samples closest to the median. The lines above and below the IQR, represent either 1.5 times the IQR or the maximum range of the samples if that range is below 1.5 times the IQR. The dots above or below these lines represent outliers that are above or below 1.5 times the IQRs. As determined by Kruskal-Wallis, the on-campus cohort had a statistically higher mean GPA than the on-campus transfer cohort (p = 0.031) but not the DE MCS cohort (p = 0.118) in the Fall 2013 semester (H = 8.5, df = 2). The mean GPAs of the two transfer cohorts were not statistically different (p = 0.956). At the time of graduation, as depicted in the right box plot, the on-campus transfer cohort had a statistically lower mean GPA than the on-campus cohort (p = 0.00016), but there was no statistical difference between the mean graduating GPAs of the on-campus and DE MCS students (p = 0.995) nor the on-campus transfer and DE MCS cohort (p = 0.269) (H = 16.5, df = 2).</p

Enrollment by students into the Microbiology and Cell Science major across time.

<p>a) transfer student enrollments in the on-campus (blue) and distance education (red) and b) first time in college (FTIC) students enrolled in the College of Agricultural and Life Science (blue) or College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (red) Microbiology and Cell Science major.</p