The Council for Opportunity in Education, in collaboration with TERC, seeks to advance the understanding of social and cultural factors that increase retention of women of color in computing; and implement and evaluate a mentoring and networking intervention for undergraduate women of color based on the project's research findings. Computing is unique because it ranks as one of the STEM fields that are least populated by women of color, and because while representation of women of color is increasing in nearly every other STEM field, it is currently decreasing in computing - even as national job prospects in technology fields increase. The project staff will conduct an extensive study of programs that have successfully served women of color in the computing fields and will conduct formal interviews with 15 professional women of color who have thrived in computing to learn about their educational strategies. Based on those findings, the project staff will develop and assess a small-scale intervention that will be modeled on the practices of mentoring and networking which have been established as effective among women of color who are students of STEM disciplines. By partnering with Broadening Participation in Computing Alliances and local and national organizations dedicated to diversifying computing, project staff will identify both women of color undergraduates to participate in the intervention and professionals who can serve as mentors to the undergraduates in the intervention phase of the project. Assisting the researchers will be a distinguished Advisory Board that provides expertise in broadening the representation of women of color in STEM education. The external evaluator will provide formative and summative assessments of the project's case study data and narratives data using methods of study analysis and narrative inquiry and will lead the formative and summative evaluation of the intervention using a mixed methods approach. The intervention evaluation will focus on three variables: 1) students' attitudes toward computer science, 2) their persistence in computer science and 3) their participant attitudes toward, and experiences in, the intervention.
This project extends the PIs' previous NSF-funded work on factors that impact the success of women of color in STEM. The project will contribute an improved understanding of the complex challenges that women of color encounter in computing. It will also illuminate individual and programmatic strategies that enable them to participate more fully and in greater numbers. The ultimate broader impact of the project should be a proven, scalable model for reversing the downward trend in the rates at which women of color earn bachelor's degrees in computer science.
This research extends the investigator's prior NSF supported work to develop theoretical and empirical understanding of the double bind faced by women of color in STEM fields. That is, their race and gender present dual dilemmas as they move through STEM educational and career paths. The proposed study will identify gaps in our understanding, and identify some of the methodological problems associated with answering outstanding questions about the double bind. The major research question is: What strategies work to enable women of color to achieve higher levels of advancement in STEM academia and professions? The goal is to bring a clearer understanding of the issues which confront women of color as they pursue study of science and engineering, and what factors influence whether they leave or remain in STEM.
The work will employ a highly structured narrative analysis process to identify and quantify factors that have been successful in broadening the participation of minority women in STEM. The research design involves two separate tracks of work: 1) to conduct narrative analysis of primary documents associated with women of color in science; and 2) to conduct site visits and interviews to understand features of programs associated with successful support of women of color in undergraduate and graduate education. The first part is designed to inform the second, with the narrative analysis helping to identify features to look for in site visits and to use in development of interview protocols.
This research will focus on individual and programmatic factors that sustain women of color as they confront barriers to their career goals. It examines institutional strategies and support structures that help women of color ultimately to succeed, and social and pedagogic elements that influence their educational experiences. Although women of color have made some progress over the last three decades towards more equitable participation in STEM fields, the major efforts made to address this issue have not produced the desired outcomes; minority women continue to be underrepresented relative to white women and non-minority men. The factors that account for continued lower participation rates are not yet fully understood.
Beyond the Double Bind is designed to transform the intellectual basis for building future programs that will better enable women of color to be successful in STEM. While focused on women of color, the results will ultimately inform strategies and programs to expand the presence of all women and minorities in STEM.
Counterspaces in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are often considered “safe spaces” at the margins for groups outside the mainstream of STEM education. The prevailing culture and structural manifestations in STEM have traditionally privileged norms of success that favor competitive, individualistic, and solitary practices—norms associated with White male scientists. This privilege extends to structures that govern learning and mark progress in STEM education that have marginalized groups that do not reflect the gender, race, or ethnicity conventionally associated with
Described by Wohlwend, Peppler, Keune and Thompson (2017) as “a range of activities that blend design and technology, including textile crafts, robotics, electronics, digital fabrication, mechanical repair or creation, tinkering with everyday appliances, digital storytelling, arts and crafts—in short, fabricating with new technologies to create almost anything” (p. 445), making can open new possibilities for applied, interdisciplinary learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Martin, 2015), in ways that decenter and democratize access to ideas, and promote the construction
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jill CastekMichelle Schira HagermanRebecca Woodland
We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in the United States, focusing on the role of inventive ability (“nature”) vs. environment (“nurture”). Using deidentified data on 1.2 million inventors from patent records linked to tax records, we first show that children’s chances of becoming inventors vary sharply with characteristics at birth, such as their race, gender, and parents’ socioeconomic class. For example, children from high-income (top 1%) families are ten times as likely to become inventors as those from below-median income families. These gaps persist even
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alex BellRaj ChettyXavier JaravelNeviana PetkovaJohn Van Reenen
How can we navigate partnerships with science institutions to better implement informal science education projects in underserved communities? We hope you’ll take some time to go through this booklet and answer the questions honestly and thoroughly. The process will help your community-based organization navigate partnerships with science institutions better to benefit your community.
Overlaying Computer Science (CS) courses on top of inequitable schooling systems will not move us toward “CS for All.” This paper prioritizes the perspectives of minoritized students enrolled in high school CS classrooms across a large, urban school district in the Western United States, to help inform how CS can truly be for all.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jean RyooTiera TanksleyCynthia EstradaJane Margolis
This award takes an innovative approach to an ongoing, pervasive, and persistent societal issue: women are still drastically underrepresented in computing careers. This project targets middle school-aged girls because it is a time when many of them lose interest and confidence in pursuing technical education and computing careers. This project will design, develop, and deploy a one-week experience focused on middle school girls that targets this issue with a novel combination of teaching techniques and technology. The project will use wearable computing devices to support girls' social interactions as they learn computing and solve technical challenges together. The goals of the project are to raise interest, perceived competence, and involvement in the computational ability of girls. Additionally, the project aims to increase a sense of computational community for girls that makes pursuing computational skills more relevant to their identities and lives, and that helps continued participation in computing. The project will deploy a one-week experience four times per year with a socioeconomically diverse range of campers. The project will also develop a 'program in a box' kit that can be broadly used by others wishing to deliver a similar experience for girls.
The planned research will determine if a one-week experience that uses social wearable construction in the context of live-action role play can use the mediating process of computational community formation to positively impact middle school girls' engagement with and interest in computation. Computational community is defined as girls engaging together in the process of learning computation, trading resources and knowledge, and supporting growth. Research participants will include 100 6th to 9th-grade girls. At least 75% of the participants will be either low income, first-generation college-bound, or underrepresented in higher education. Students will be recruited through the longstanding partnerships with title one schools in the Salinas Valley, the Educational Partnership Center, and in the Pajaro Valley Unified School district, where 82% of the students are Hispanic/Latinx, 42% are English Learners, and 73% are eligible for free or reduced lunch. The research questions are: 1) Does the proposed experience increase girls' self-reported competence, self-efficacy, and interest in computational skills and careers? and 2) Will the proposed experience lead to activity-based evidence of learning and integration of computational skills at the group social level? The project will use a mixed-methods, design-based research approach which is an iterative design process to rapidly collect and analyze data, and regularly discuss the implications for practice with the design team. Data will be collected using observations, interviews, focus groups, surveys, and staff logs. Quantitative data will be analyzed using frequencies, means, and measures of dispersion will be applied to survey data from both time points. Pearson correlation coefficients will be used to describe the bivariate relationship between continuous factors. ANOVAs will assess whether there are significant differences in continuous measures across groups. Qualitative data will be analyzed using a constant comparison method.
This Innovations in Development award is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which 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.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katherine Isbister
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The National Science Teachers Association will convene a conference that will bring together STEM researchers and practitioners to review the growing connected science learning movement. A connected science learning environment has been described as a robust science ecology containing a wide variety of programs, across a range of institutions and places, allowing youth different and multiple ways to engage with STEM. Such environments can include small partnerships, such as a science museum and K-12 schools, or a large, community-wide network of a variety of organizations such as K-12 schools, museums, universities, government agencies, and community organizations. The conference will bring together over forty participants, who will meet in a series of several online meetings. The conference will result in a series of papers, articles in the online Connected Science Learning journal and other publications, a series of webinars and online forums where participants can engage with themes identified in the conference, and conference presentations at the annual meetings of organizations including the National Science Teachers Association, the Association of Science-Technology Centers, and others. This award is funded by the Advanced Informal STEM Learning program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.
The conference will: (1) document the research foundation that supports and demonstrates the impact and value of high-quality connected science learning experiences; (2) identify areas for which future research is recommended; and (3) provide effective, practitioner-focused resources that advance connected STEM learning. The conference will include participants that represent a wide range of researchers and practitioners in informal and formal STEM education, as well as representing gender, racial/ethnic and geographical diversity. The results and products of the conference will be instrumental in developing the understanding and appreciation for connecting STEM learning and ultimately improving connected STEM learning for K-12 youth. The importance of emphasizing diversity, equity, and accessibility will be strongly represented in the key evidence identified through the conference and will be reflected in the resources that will be disseminated to a broader audience.
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.
Background. STEM identity has emerged as an important research topic and a predictor of how youth engage with STEM inside and outside of school. Although there is a growing body of literature in this area, less work has been done specific to engineering, especially in out-of-school learning contexts.
Methods. To address this need, we conducted a qualitative investigation of five adolescent youth participating in a four-month afterschool engineering program. The study focused on how participants negotiated engineering-related identities through ongoing interactions with activities, peers
Informal STEM field trip programming is a large, yet under-researched area of the education landscape. Informal STEM education providers are often serving a more privileged section of society, leading to a risk of perpetuating inequalities seen throughout the education landscape. In an attempt to address the lack of research, this thesis explores the relationship between educational equity and informal STEM field trips. The intention was to collect data using a critical ethnography approach to the methods of qualitative questionnaire and interviews of informal STEM educators. A change in
For the SciGirls Strategies supplemental activity, ten educators were trained to be SciGirls Strategies trainers during June 2019. During that time, they developed action plans for their local teacher training. The goal was for each Trainer to train ten or more teachers in their local schools/districts. Trainers could plan and schedule their workshops to fit their local context in order to accomplish the objectives of building teacher’s confidence and skills in using gender equitable and culturally responsive teaching strategies.
After the training workshop, the trainers met once a month