African American and Latinx youth are often socialized towards athletic activity and sports participation, sometimes at the expense of their exploration of the range of potential career paths including those in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This project will immerse middle school youth in the rapidly growing world of sports data analytics and build their knowledge of statistics concepts and the data science process. The project will focus on the STEM interests and knowledge development of African American and Latinx youth, an underrepresented and underserved group in STEM. Researchers will explore the ways youths' social identities can and should serve as bridges towards future productive academic and professional identities including those associated with STEM learning and the STEM professions. The outcomes of the project will advance knowledge in promoting elements of informal learning experiences that build adolescents' motivation and persistence for productive participation in STEM courses and careers. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program (AISL), which seeks to advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments, and the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers program (ITEST), which funds projects that leverage innovative uses of technologies to prepare diverse youth for the STEM workforce, with a focus on broadening participation among underrepresented and underserved groups in STEM fields.
Over a three-year period, 250 middle school learners in the West Baltimore, Maryland and Hyattsville, Maryland areas will engage in three main learning activities: Summer Camp (three weeks), Sports Day Saturdays, and a Spring Summit. Through a partnership between the University of Maryland and Coppin State University, the project will utilize resources in multiple departments and units across both universities, and engage with youth sports leagues such as the American Athletic Union (AAU) to support participants' engagement in the data science process including collection of raw data, exploration of data, development of models, visualization, communication, and reporting of data, and data-driven decision making. Furthermore, youth participants will attend local AAU, college, and professional sporting events, and interact with members of coaching staffs to better understand the ways performance data technologies are utilized to inform recruitment and team performance. The mixed-methods research agenda for this project is guided by three main questions: (1) What elements of the project's model are most successful at supporting congruence of adolescents' academic identity, including STEM identity and social identity including athletic identity? (2) What elements support adolescents' motivation, and persistence for productive participation in current and future STEM courses? (3) To what extent did the project appear to influence participants' perceptions of their future professions? At multiple points throughout the experience, participants will complete surveys designed to document and assess statistics and data science knowledge; interest in STEM careers; academic, social and athletic identity development; and STEM course taking patterns. Researchers will also observe project activities, interview a focal group of participants, and survey participants' parents to identify elements of learning experiences that encourage and support adolescents' interest in STEM disciplines and STEM professions. The project team will develop conceptual and pedagogical frameworks that support middle school youth' engagement and interest in science, engineering, technology, and mathematics through repurposing spaces where these youths frequent. A major outcome of the project will be workforce preparation and offers a promising approach for encouraging youth to persist along STEM pathways, which may ultimately result in broadened participation in STEM workforces.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
This Research in Service to Practice project 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, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
The project will research the educational impact of social robots in informal learning environments, with applications to how social robots can improve participation and engagement of middle-school girls in out-of-school computer science programs in under-resourced rural and urban areas. The use of robots to improve STEM outcomes has focused on having learners program robots as tools to accomplish tasks (e.g., play soccer). An alternate approach views robots as social actors that can respond intelligently to users. By designing a programmable robot with social characteristics, the project aims to create a culturally-responsive curriculum for Latina, African American, and Native American girls who have been excluded by approaches that separate technical skill and social interaction. The knowledge produced by this project related to the use and benefits of social programmable robots has the potential to impact the many after-school and weekend programs that attempt to engage learners in STEM ideas using programmable robot curricula.
The project robot, named Cozmo, will be programmed using a visual programming language and will convey emotion with facial expressions, sounds, and movements. Middle school girls will engage in programming activities, collaborative reflection, and interact with college women mentors trained to facilitate the course. The project will investigate whether the socially expressive Cozmo improves computer science outcomes such as attitudes, self-efficacy, and knowledge among the middle school female participants differently than the non-social version. The project will also investigate whether adding rapport-building dialogue to Cozmo enhances these outcomes (e.g., when a learner succeeds in getting Cozmo to move, Cozmo can celebrate, saying "I can move! You're amazing!"). These questions will be examined research conducted with participants in multi-session after-school courses facilitated by Girl Scout troops in Arizona. The project will disseminate project research and resources widely by sharing research findings in educational and learning science journals; creating a website with open source code for programming social robots; and making project curriculum and related guidelines available to Girl Scouts and other educational programs.
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.