2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The S-STEM funded RISE Scholars Program examines the effects of engaging undergraduate students in a structured practice of science communication on their academic performance, persistence, and graduation in a STEM field. The program includes a weeklong summer bridge experience intended to develop incoming students’ curiosity, introduce science communication, and build community within the cohort; two STEM communication courses (on public speaking and science writing); and a variety of co-curricular activities with STEM and communication themes.

This paper presents preliminary results on 4-year graduation outcomes. Data on academic performance and progress, as well as incoming student characteristics, were obtained from university records for the first two cohorts of fourteen RISE Scholars and for a control group of all 287 other students who entered the university in a STEM major in Fall 2019.

All but one RISE Scholar graduated within four years, each in the STEM major they started in. In contrast, only 56% of the control group graduated from the university in four years (p = .005), 43% in a STEM major (p = .0002), and 37% in the major they started in (p < .0001). The RISE Scholars’ mean GPA at graduation (or completion of fourth year, for one continuing student) was 3.39, compared to a mean GPA of 2.87 for the control group (p = .025).

To determine whether the superior outcomes attained by the RISE Scholars can be attributed to their participation in the program, and not solely to their academic talent (a criterion for any S-STEM program participant), linear and logistic regression analyses were performed to predict final cumulative GPA and four-year graduation in STEM, respectively, while controlling for factors related to student preparation (e.g., high school GPA, math SAT score), identity (e.g., gender, race and ethnicity), and environmental characteristics (e.g., participation in tutoring and other support programs).

The results suggest that participation in the RISE program independently accounts for 0.25 points of the difference in final cumulative GPA (p = .017). More strikingly, the logistic regression model showed that RISE participation increased the odds of graduating in a STEM major in four years by nearly 14 times (p = .0015). RISE participation was the third-strongest predictor in the model, after high school GPA and initial math course placement. We conclude that the RISE Scholars Program has been highly effective in promoting student persistence and graduation.