The research questions guiding this study are:  

1. How do rural serving EPPs address rurality? What features of EPPs are intended to prepare program completers for employment as a STEM teacher in rural schools? 

2. What programmatic features of the EPPs impact teacher candidates’ intentions to teach STEM in rural schools? How do these programmatic features impact the teacher candidates’ intentions? 

3. What programmatic features of the EPPs impact program completers’ decisions to accept their first teaching position in rural STEM classrooms? How do these programmatic features impact the teacher candidates’ decisions? 

4. What programmatic features of the EPP impact program completers’ decisions to persist in teaching STEM at the same rural campus? In what ways do these features impact the teacher candidate’s decisions and long-term plans to persist at the same rural campus? 

5. What impacts program completers’ retention, that is, their decisions to keep teaching STEM in (a) rural or (b) non-rural schools, but not necessarily at the same campus? In what ways do these features impact the teacher candidate’s decisions to remain teaching STEM in (a) rural or (b) non-rural schools? 

• https://aaas-arise.org/2023/08/09/positioning-universities-to-recruit-and-train-stem-teachers-who-stay-in-rural-schools-a-collaborative-approach/

• How Can We Prepare STEM Teachers to Work and Thrive in Rural Schools? (AAAS Blog, March 2022)

• MSU-led, NSF-Funded Project Aims to Strengthen Rural Educator Pipeline

• STEM Teaching and Learning in Rural Communities: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities (Theory and Practice in Rural Education, 2022)