Collaborative research-mentoring for tribal college students

Abstract

North Dakota's five tribal colleges and two research universities have been working together to establish smooth pathways and seamless transitions for Native American students who aspire to seek higher education degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) by 1) creating a strong alliance between the universities and the state's tribal colleges; 2) implementing an initiative of research capacity building in tribal colleges that will engage tribal college faculty and baccalaureate anticipatory STEM majors in basic scientific research; and 3) engaging tribal college students in research using a tribal college-university collaborative model for research mentoring. Recent educational research has shown that students who engage in research projects are more likely to enroll in and complete STEM degree programs when compared to other students. Increased understanding of the research process, a shift from passive to active learning, enhanced research and laboratory skills, and increased understanding and interest in the discipline are some of the benefits undergraduate students gain by engaging in research. Therefore, "engaging the students in research" is adopted here as a major strategy to improve their retention in STEM programs. Faculty involvement in research mentoring not only leads to their enrichment as teachers but also enriches them as scholars. Though the responsibility of the tribal college (TC) faculty is primarily teaching, engaging in research and developing research project situations for students, research provides them opportunities to enhance their teaching capability and professional development. In this collaborative model, university and tribal college faculty co-mentor tribal college students on STEM research projects. One or two tribal college students work with a TC mentor and a university mentor. Students do research on their respective campuses during the academic year. The interaction of the university professor with the TC student and mentor is mainly over the telephone or with an occasional travel to campuses. The expectations are that the university and tribal college faculty members would help students develop the appropriate research questions (hypotheses) and would advise on techniques/methods of investigation, design of experiments, data analysis, drawing appropriate conclusions, preparation of presentations and reports of their findings. Imparting research skills is the emphasis of the collaborative research mentoring model and not necessarily discovery research. The collaborative model also creates a sound research platform between tribal colleges and universities. This paper will discuss the experience of the authors with this mentoring model from its conception, implementation, impacts, short-comings, successes, and finally the lessons learned. © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education.