IDEA Cooperative: Select Findings From the Design Team Exit Survey

All youth in the Science Museum of Minnesota's Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center (KAYSC) are invited to complete a web-based exit survey upon leaving their current team. The survey is the same across all KAYSC teams, with the addition of some questions specific to a team’s experience and outcomes. This report includes select data from the exit surveys for the Invention, Design, Engineering, and Art (IDEA) Cooperative middle school team, called the Design Team. The purpose of the exit surveys were to understand youth's overall experience on the IDEA Coop as well as the impact of the IDEA Coop experience on youth'€™s course enrollment, post-secondary plans, and career aspirations.Throughout the course of the project, a total of 90 youth participated in the Design Team and 61 of these youth consented to participate in the evaluation activities lead by the Science Museum of Minnesota'€™s Department of Evaluation and Research in Learning. Of those 61 youth, 29 completed an exit survey for a 48% completion rate. Key Findings: - Most of the youth have taken or plan to take at least one engineering course. Of these 21 students, over half (57%) said the IDEA Coop influenced their decision to take at least one engineering related course. - All of the Design Team youth plan to go on to post-secondary school after they graduate from high school with close to two thirds (63%) hoping to go on to graduate or professional school. - Over three quarters of the youth (71%) said they are interested in possibly studying a STEM-related area. However, only three youth said their IDEA Coop experience had an impact on their decision to pursue STEM in post-secondary school. - Youth talked specifically about the job or career they expect to have at the age of 30 and over half of the youth mentioned at least one STEM related career. Only two indicated that their involvement with the Design Team had a positive influence on their future job decisions. The exit survey used in the study is included in the appendix of this report.

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