Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Remy DouHeidi CianZahra HazariPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
This project centers on an Indigenous Scholars program, immersing students in land-based learning to deepen a relationship with their homeland while understanding how legal and political conflicts impact environmental and community health. Students will explore ways of knowing in language, mathematics, science, arts, and society and culture, through sessions led by scholars versed in Indigenous methodologies.
Many studies have examined the impression that the general public has of science and how this can prevent girls from choosing science fields. Using an online questionnaire, we investigated whether the public perception of several academic fields was gender-biased in Japan. First, we found the gender-bias gap in public perceptions was largest in nursing and mechanical engineering. Second, people who have a low level of egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles perceived that nursing was suitable for women. Third, people who have a low level of egalitarian attitudes perceived that many STEM
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Yuko IkkataiAzusa MinamizakiKei KanoAtsushi InoueEuan McKayHiromi M. Yokoyama
Research shows that algebra is a major barrier to student success, enthusiasm and participation in STEM for under-represented students, particularly African-American students in under-resourced high schools. Programs that develop ways to help students master algebra concepts and a belief that they can perform algebra may lead to more students entering engineering careers. This project will provide an online engineering program to support 9th and 10th grade Baltimore City Public Schools students, a predominantly low-income African-American cohort, to develop concrete goals of becoming engineers. The goals of the program are to help students with a growing interest in engineering to maintain that interest throughout high school. The project will also support students aspire to an engineering career. The project will develop in students an appreciation of requisite courses and skills, and increase self-efficacy in mathematics. The project will also develop a replicable model of informal education capable of reinforcing the mathematical foundations that students learn during the school day. Additionally, the project will broaden participation in engineering by being available to students during out-of-school time and by having relaxed entrance criteria compared to existing opportunities in supplemental engineering curricula. The project is a collaboration between the Baltimore City Public Schools, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and Expanded School-Based Mental Health programs to support students both during and after participation. The project will benefit society by providing skills that will allow high school students to become members of tomorrow's highly trained STEM workforce.
The research will test whether an informal, scaffolded online algebra-for-engineering program increases students' mastery and self-efficacy in mathematics. The research will advance knowledge regarding informal education by applying Social Cognitive Career Theory as a framework for measuring program impact. The theoretical framework will aid in identifying mechanisms through which students with interest in engineering might persist in maintaining this interest through high school via algebra skill mastery and increased self-efficacy. The project will recruit 200 youth from the Baltimore City Public Schools to participate in the project over three years. Qualitative data will be collected to assess how student and school socioeconomic factors impact implementation, student engagement, and outcomes. The research will answer the following questions: 1) What effect does program participation have on math mastery? 2) What direct and indirect effects do program completion and supports have on students' mathematics self-efficacy? 3) What direct and indirect effects do program components have on engineering career goals by the end of the program? 4) What direct and indirect effects does math self-efficacy have on career goals? 5) To what extent are the effects of program participation on engineering career goals mediated by math self-efficacy and engineering interest? 6) How do school factors relate to the implementation of the program? 7) What socioeconomic-related factors relate to the regularity and continuation of student participation in the program? The quantitative methods of data analysis will employ descriptive and multivariate statistical methods. Qualitative data from interviews will be analyzed using an emergent approach and a coding scheme guided by theoretical constructs. Project results will be communicated to scholars and practitioners. The team will also share information through school newsletters and parent communication through Baltimore City Public Schools.
This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Since 1992, the WSU Math Corps, a combined mathematics and mentoring program, has worked to make a difference in the lives of Detroit’s children—providing them with the love and support that all kids need in the moment, while empowering them with the kinds of educational opportunities and sense of purpose, that hold the promise of good lives for themselves and a better world for all.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Steve KahnStephen ChrisomalisTodd KubicaCarol Philips-BeyFrancisca Richter
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The three-year project, Montana Models: Connecting Local and Disciplinary Practices through University-Community Partnerships, focuses on creating, implementing, and studying several learning outcomes associated with youth engagement in mathematical modeling contexts. The project builds on existing partnerships between the state's two research universities and Montana 4-H to target outreach to rural youth and bring them into a network of people who can inspire, support, and sustain STEM learning. Middle school and high school students from rural communities will be invited to a university campus for a residential modeling-based summer program l focused on mathematics and mathematical modeling. Activities at the summer program are designed to engage them in problems relevant to their own backgrounds and experiences and to honor their local funds of knowledge. The primary goal of Montana Models is to use mathematical modeling as a mechanism for bringing everyday mathematical practices already present in rural communities into contact with disciplinary practices. The project focuses on the following research questions: (1) What are the everyday mathematical practices in Montana communities? (2) How can everyday mathematical practices be leveraged and brought into contact with disciplinary practices in service of mathematizing meaningful questions within the community? (3) How do youth identify and get identified with respect to mathematics and with respect to their role in the world? (4) How does participation in project activities affect participants' knowledge of mathematical practices and content? The project uses social design experimentation, a hybrid research methodology which combines the traditions of design-based research with forms of inquiry that involve collaboration among participants, researchers, and other stakeholders, such as critical ethnography. Data sources include field notes from ethnographic observations, interviews, videos of students engaging in modeling activities, artifacts that show their mathematical work, and results from the Attitudes Towards Mathematics Inventory. Through its collaboration with 4-H, Montana Models targets outreach to rural youth across the state, especially those from groups that are typically underrepresented in STEM fields. The project is poised to impact ways in which formal and informal educators understand the knowledge bases that are already present in rural communities and how those bases may inform, support, and sustain STEM learning. Findings and deliverables will be disseminated through a public-facing website and through the 4-H infrastructure. This infrastructure includes Montana 4-H's Clover Communication Contest that will allow participating youth to showcase their projects. Research findings will be shared through local and national conferences and peer-reviewed publications. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
The University of Texas at Austin's Texas Advanced Computing Center, Chaminade University of Honolulu (CUH), and the Georgia Institute of Technology will lead this NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot (DDLP) to establish a model for data science preparation of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) students at the high school and undergraduate levels. The project is premised on the promise of NHPI communities gaining access to, and the ability to work with, large data sets to tackle emerging problems in the Pacific. Such agency over "big data" sets that are relevant to Pacific issues, and contemporary skills in data science, analytics and visualization have the potential to be transformative for community improvement efforts. The effort has the potential to advance knowledge, instructional pedagogy and practices to improve NHPI high school and undergraduate students performance in and attraction to STEM education and careers.
The project team will work to: 1) Increase interest and proficiency in data science and visualization among NHPI high school and undergraduate students through a summer immersion experience that bridges computation and culture; 2) Build data science capacity at an NHPI serving undergraduate institution (CUH) through creation of a certificate program; and 3) Develop and expand partnerships with other organizations with related goals working with NHPI populations. The month-long summer training for 20 NHPI college students, and five NHPI high school students, takes place at CUH and focuses on data science, visualization, and virtual reality, including working on problem sets that require data science approaches and incorporate geographically, socially- and culturally-relevant research themes.
Improving retention rates in postsecondary engineering degree programs is the single most effective approach for addressing the national shortage of skilled engineers. Both mathematics course placement and performance are strong graduation predictors in engineering, even after controlling for demographic characteristics. Underrepresented students (e.g., rural students, low-income students, first-generation students, and students of color) are disproportionately represented in cohorts that enter engineering programs not yet calculus-ready. Frequently, the time and cost of obtaining an engineering degree is increased, and the likelihood of obtaining the degree is also reduced. This educational problem is particularly acute for African American students who attended select high schools in South Carolina, with extremely high-poverty rates. As a result, the investigators proposed an NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project to develop a statewide consortium in South Carolina - comprising all of the public four-year institutions with ABET-approved engineering degree programs, all of the technical colleges, and 118 high schools with 70% or higher poverty rates, to pinpoint and address the barriers that prevent these students from being calculus ready in engineering.
This NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project will map completion/attrition pathways of students by collecting robust cross-sectional data to identify and understand the complex linkages between and behind critical decisions. Such data have not been available to this extent, especially focused on diverse populations. Further, by developing structural equation models (SEMs), the investigators will be able to build on extant research, contributing directly to understanding the relative impact of a range of latent variables on the development of engineering identity, particularly among African American, rural, low-income, and first-generation engineering students. Results of the pilot interventions are likely to contribute to the empirical and theoretical literature that focus on engineering persistence among underrepresented populations. Project plans also include developing a centralized database compatible to the Multiple Institution Database for Investigation of Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) project to share institutional data with K-12 and postsecondary administrators, engineering educators, and education researchers with NSF INCLUDES projects and beyond.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Anand GramopadhyeDerek BrownEliza GallagherKristin Frady
Utah Valley University (UVU) with partners Weber State University (WSU) and American Indian Services (AIS) are implementing UTAH PREP (PREParation for STEM Careers) to address the need for early preparation in mathematics to strengthen and invigorate the secondary-to-postsecondary-to-career STEM pipeline. As the preliminary groundwork for UTAH PREP, each partner currently hosts a PREP program (UVU PREP, WSU PREP, and AIS PREP) that identifies low-income, under-represented minority, first-generation, and female students entering seventh grade who have interest and aptitude in math and science, and involves them in a seven-week, three-year summer intensive program integrating STEM courses and activities. The course content blends skill-building academics with engaging experiences that promote a clear understanding of how mathematical concepts and procedures are applied in various fields of science and engineering. Courses are enhanced through special projects, field trips, college campus visits, and the annual Sci-Tech EXPO. The purpose of the program is to motivate and prepare participants from diverse backgrounds to complete a rigorous program of mathematics in high school so that they can successfully pursue STEM studies and careers, which are vital to advancing the regional and national welfare.
UTAH PREP is based on the TexPREP program that originated at the University of Texas at San Antonio and which was named as one of the Bright Spots in Hispanic Education by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics in 2015. TexPREP was adapted by UVU for use in Utah for non-minority serving institutions and in regions with lower minority populations, but with great academic and college participation disparity. With NSF funding for a two-year pilot program, the project partners are building UTAH PREP through a networked improvement community, collective impact approach that, if demonstrably successful, has the ability to scale to a national level. This pilot program's objectives include: 1) creating a UTAH PREP collaboration with commitments to a common set of objectives and common set of plans to achieve them; 2) strengthening existing PREP programs and initiating UTAH PREP at two or three other institutions of higher education in Utah, each building a sustainable local support network; 3) developing a shared measurement system to assess the impact of UTAH PREP programs, adaptations, and mutually reinforcing activities on students, including those from groups that are underrepresented in STEM disciplines; and 4) initiating a backbone organization that will support future scaling of the program's impact.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Daniel HornsAndrew StoneVioleta Vasilevska
The Wayne State University Math Corps is a mathematics enrichment and mentoring program that operates during summers and on Saturdays. The curriculum and the teach pedagogies in this informal learning program have documented success of supporting youths' mathematics learning as well as raising achievement levels in school. Through rigorous research and evaluation, this project seeks to analyze and understand the nature, extent, and reasons for Math Corps' success with youth learning in Detroit as well as the processes of program replication in three sites: Cleveland, OH; Utica, NY; and Philadelphia, PA. As such, this project will deepen understandings of program replication and of addressing the needs of youth in economically-challenged communities in order to promote mathematics learning.
The project's research studies will assess the multiple factors that make Math Corps successful with youth in Detroit and document the implementation of the program to the three replication sites. Research methods include discourse analyses, surveys, interviews, and pre/post-tests. The project will also conduct a retrospective evaluation of Math Corps based on quantitative datasets regarding both near-term and long-term youth outcomes.
This projects is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understandings of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Steve KahnStephen ChrisomalisTodd KubicaCarol Philips-BeyFrancisca Richter