STEM Interest as an Indicator of Elementary and Middle School Aged Youth’s Decision to Participate in Out-of-School Informal STEM Education

Turhan K. Carroll; Jessica R Hoehn; Noah D Finkelstein

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: Homer's Handy Homework: STEM Adventures from Sofa to School, Mmm... STEM
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE)
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47996

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Turhan K. Carroll University of Georgia orcid.org/0000-0002-0527-9544

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Dr. Turhan Carroll is an Assistant Professor of Workforce Education at the University of Georgia. His research interests reside in two fields: engineering education and STEM education. His research agenda focuses on understanding the impacts of informal STEM education; supporting engineering education pathways for racially minoritized and economically disadvantaged pre-college students; and elementary STEM education.

Dr. Carroll earned his PhD in Engineering Education with an interdisciplinary specialization in Quantitative Research Evaluation and Methodology from The Ohio State University. Prior to joining the College of Education, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University. Prior to his graduate work he worked as an engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, OH.

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Jessica R Hoehn University of Colorado Boulder orcid.org/0000-0001-9111-9637

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Dr. Jessica R. Hoehn is a postdoctoral researcher at University of Colorado Boulder. She received her PhD in Physics Education Research from CU, studying ontological, epistemological, and social aspects of student reasoning in quantum mechanics. Dr. Hoehn

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Noah D Finkelstein University of Colorado Boulder orcid.org/0000-0002-4783-4964

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Noah Finkelstein is a Professor and Vice Chair in the department of Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. He conducts research is in physics education, specifically studying the conditions that support students' identities, engagement and outcomes in physics - developing models of context. In parallel, he conducts research on how educational transformations get taken up, spread, and sustained. He is a PI in the Physics Education Research (PER) group and was founding co-director of CU's Center for STEM Learning. He co-directs the national Network of STEM Education Centers, is building the STEM DBER-Alliance, and coalitions advancing undergraduate education transformation. He is involved in education policy serving on many national boards, sits on a National Academies' STEM education roundtable, is a Trustee of the Higher Learning Commission, is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Presidential Teaching Scholar and the inaugural Timmerhaus Teaching Ambassador for the University of Colorado system.

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Abstract

Youth typically decide whether to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers as early as middle school, suggesting that nurturing STEM interest in elementary and middle (primary) school is a key factor in attracting youth to engineering. Goals of racial equity and attracting youth into engineering have birthed the proliferation of many informal STEM education (ISE) programs (e.g., out-of-school programs, summer camps, etc.). Though research suggests that ISE increases participants’ STEM interest, it is unclear whether ISE is successful in sparking STEM interest in previously uninterested youth. This gap exists partly because little is known about the initial STEM interest of ISE participants.

Using a survey research design, we addressed this gap by studying initial STEM interest among 336 primary school youth from the mountain west region of the United States: 44 of whom participated in an in-person out-of-school ISE program (which serves racially minoritized youth), post-COVID, and 292 who did not. The research questions guiding this study were:

RQ1. To what extent do youth who did or did not participate in the ISE program differ in their initial STEM interest? RQ2. Controlling for STEM identity, performance, recognition and future-self, along with race and family income, to what degree is initial STEM interest predictive of youths’ decision to participate in the out-of-school program?

This research contributes to pre-college engineering education scholarship by deepening our understanding of youth who participate in ISE and illuminating ways to better attract those uninterested in STEM. By providing insight into the baseline interest of ISE participants, our research furthers the field’s understanding of the long-term outcomes of ISE.

We used a STEM Identity survey containing Interest, Performance, Recognition, and Future-Self constructs. For RQ1, we conducted a two-tailed independent samples t-test. We found a moderately large difference in STEM interest between ISE participants and non- participants in this study (t(131.805) = -8.764, p < .001, d = .63). For RQ2, we used logistic regression. Results indicate that youth with high initial STEM interest are nearly 40 times more likely to choose to participate in this ISE program than youth with lower STEM interest (OR_Interest = 39.72). Further, the Hispanic youth we studied were more likely to choose to participate than non-Hispanic youth (OR_Hispanic = 2.83).

These findings provide initial evidence that youth attracted to ISE have high initial STEM interest. Understanding this allows ISE stakeholders to develop strategies to both attract youth who are uninterested in STEM and support those who already have interest. In this way, our study elucidates who is currently participating in this program and how recruiting strategies could be tailored in ways that strengthen ISE’s ability to broaden participation in STEM. Moreover, reaching students with higher STEM interest is beneficial because it can prevent their exclusion from STEM, particularly those from marginalized racial groups. Attracting these youth to ISE can foster positive STEM identity formation among them. We report the details of the study, methods, analyses and findings. We then discuss implications of these findings for pre-college engineering education research.

Citation
Format

Carroll, T. K., & Hoehn, J. R., & Finkelstein, N. D. (2024, June), STEM Interest as an Indicator of Elementary and Middle School Aged Youth’s Decision to Participate in Out-of-School Informal STEM Education Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47996

TY - CPAPER
AB - Youth typically decide whether to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers as early as middle school, suggesting that nurturing STEM interest in elementary and middle (primary) school is a key factor in attracting youth to engineering. Goals of racial equity and attracting youth into engineering have birthed the proliferation of many informal STEM education (ISE) programs (e.g., out-of-school programs, summer camps, etc.). Though research suggests that ISE increases participants’ STEM interest, it is unclear whether ISE is successful in sparking STEM interest in previously uninterested youth. This gap exists partly because little is known about the initial STEM interest of ISE participants.

Using a survey research design, we addressed this gap by studying initial STEM interest among 336 primary school youth from the mountain west region of the United States: 44 of whom participated in an in-person out-of-school ISE program (which serves racially minoritized youth), post-COVID, and 292 who did not. The research questions guiding this study were:

RQ1. To what extent do youth who did or did not participate in the ISE program differ in their initial STEM interest?

RQ2. Controlling for STEM identity, performance, recognition and future-self, along with race and family income, to what degree is initial STEM interest predictive of youths’ decision to participate in the out-of-school program?

This research contributes to pre-college engineering education scholarship by deepening our understanding of youth who participate in ISE and illuminating ways to better attract those uninterested in STEM. By providing insight into the baseline interest of ISE participants, our research furthers the field’s understanding of the long-term outcomes of ISE.

We used a STEM Identity survey containing Interest, Performance, Recognition, and Future-Self constructs. For RQ1, we conducted a two-tailed independent samples t-test. We found a moderately large difference in STEM interest between ISE participants and non- participants in this study (t(131.805) = -8.764, p &amp;lt; .001, d = .63). For RQ2, we used logistic regression. Results indicate that youth with high initial STEM interest are nearly 40 times more likely to choose to participate in this ISE program than youth with lower STEM interest (OR_Interest = 39.72). Further, the Hispanic youth we studied were more likely to choose to participate than non-Hispanic youth (OR_Hispanic = 2.83).

These findings provide initial evidence that youth attracted to ISE have high initial STEM interest. Understanding this allows ISE stakeholders to develop strategies to both attract youth who are uninterested in STEM and support those who already have interest. In this way, our study elucidates who is currently participating in this program and how recruiting strategies could be tailored in ways that strengthen ISE’s ability to broaden participation in STEM. Moreover, reaching students with higher STEM interest is beneficial because it can prevent their exclusion from STEM, particularly those from marginalized racial groups. Attracting these youth to ISE can foster positive STEM identity formation among them. We report the details of the study, methods, analyses and findings. We then discuss implications of these findings for pre-college engineering education research.
AU - Turhan K. Carroll
AU - Jessica R Hoehn
AU - Noah D Finkelstein
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - STEM Interest as an Indicator of Elementary and Middle School Aged Youth’s Decision to Participate in Out-of-School Informal STEM Education
UR - https://peer.asee.org/47996
ER -