Hispanic Serving Institutions as Catalysts for Community & Belonging in STEM Education presented by Pamela Medina, Miranda McIntyre, Ana Ni, and Donna Garcia from California State University San Bernardino.
Online learning environments struggle to maintain a high sense of belonging, particularly among under-represented students in Science Engineering Technology and Math Fields. Where women and under-represented ethnic and racial minority, or URM students and first-generation students tend to struggle. Hispanic Serving Institutions, or HSI’s, present an opportunity to increase belonging, retention, and overall success of Latinx students. In this study, we survey 704 students in STEM at an HSI to better understand their sense of inclusion, experiences in the online classroom, and overall sense of belonging and community. Findings indicate that URM, women, and first-generation students tend to report a higher sense of belonging and community in online classes at the surveyed HSI, and that HSIs can contribute to a higher sense of belonging by meeting and suiting individual student preferences, ensuring high quality teaching, understanding and encouraging individual drive, acknowledging and adjusting to various educational backgrounds, and providing instructor support for learning.