Collaborative Research: A study of How Pre-College Informal Activities Influence Female Participation in STEM Careers

作为在非正式环境中加强学习的总体战略的一部分，推进非正式STEM学习(AISL)计划为各种环境中使用的创新资源提供资金。这一服务于实践的研究项目将考察广泛的大学前课外活动如何在兴趣、身份和职业选择方面促进或阻碍女性参与STEM领域。这项研究将解决一个持续存在的问题，即尽管女性在大学宣布主修专业后坚持攻读学位，但最初选择STEM职业道路的女性比男性少。为了找出这些因素可能是什么，本研究将考察大学新生在大学前参与非正式活动(例如，科学俱乐部、实习、跟踪STEM专业人员、参观博物馆、工程比赛、公民科学追求、夏令营和业余爱好)与他们的职业抱负和业余STEM兴趣和追求的程度。虽然源于文化和性别社会化的深层次因素有时会降低女性在整个上学期间对STEM的兴趣，但这项研究将考察课外参与在多大程度上改善女性遇到的关于女性和科学的微妙信息，这些信息可能会干扰她们对STEM职业的渴望。社会认知职业理论将作为理论框架，将STEM兴趣的培养与学生未来的职业选择联系起来。我们将使用流行病学的方法来检验一系列假设，这些假设来自对相关文献的回顾、与利益相关者的面对面或电话采访，以及对学生的回溯性在线调查。这些假设，以及关于学生的人口背景和在校经历的问题，将被纳入主要的实证工具，这将是一项全面的纸笔调查，将在课堂上进行，例如英语写作，这是有STEM兴趣的学生和没有STEM兴趣的学生的必修课，由6500名学生进入40所大大小小的高等院校。数据分析将从描述性统计，如联想表和相关矩阵，到多元回归和分层建模，将校外经历与STEM的兴趣、身份和职业抱负联系起来。将使用因子分析将个人校外活动合并为指数。在课外活动可能与其他因素混淆的情况下，将使用倾向分数加权来估计因果影响。预期产品将是学术出版物和演示文稿。结果将通过适当级别的期刊以及国家会议和会议向校外提供者和利益攸关方、教育工作者和教育研究人员传播。此外，哈佛-史密森天体物理中心公共事务和新闻办公室将协助通过主流媒体传播成果。新闻稿将通过学术渠道和报纸的评论文章获得。预期的结果将是基于研究的证据，即哪些类型的校外STEM经历可能有效地提高年轻女性的STEM兴趣。这些信息将对教育工作者、服务提供者以及致力于扩大女性在STEM中的参与的政策制定者至关重要。

As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This Research in Service to Practice project will examine how a wide range of pre-college out-of-school-time activities facilitate or hinder females' participation in STEM fields in terms of interest, identity, and career choices. The study will address the ongoing problem that, despite females' persistence to degree once declaring a major in college, initially fewer females than males choose a STEM career path. To uncover what these factors might be, this study will look at the extent to which college freshmen's pre-college involvement in informal activities (e.g., science clubs, internships, shadowing of STEM professionals, museum-going, engineering competitions, citizen science pursuits, summer camps, and hobbies) is associated with their career aspirations and avocational STEM interests and pursuits. While deep-seated factors, originating in culture and gender socialization, sometimes lower females' interest in STEM throughout schooling, this study will examine the degree to which out-of-school-time involvement ameliorates the subtle messages females encounter about women and science that can interfere with their aspiration to a STEM careers. The Social Cognitive Career Theory will serve as the theoretical framework to connect the development of interest in STEM with students' later career choices. An epidemiological approach will be used to test a wide range of hypotheses garnered from a review of relevant literature, face-to-face or telephone interviews with stakeholders, and retrospective online surveys of students. These hypotheses, as well as questions about the students' demographic background and in-school experiences, will be incorporated into the main empirical instrument, which will be a comprehensive paper-and-pencil survey to be administered in classes, such as English Composition, that are compulsory for both students with STEM interests and those without by 6500 students entering 40 large and small institutions of higher learning. Data analysis will proceed from descriptive statistics, such as contingency tables and correlation matrices, to multiple regression and hierarchical modeling that will link out-of-school-time experiences to STEM interest, identity, and career aspirations. Factor analysis will be used to combine individual out-of-school activities into indices. Propensity score weighting will be used to estimate causal effects in cases where out-of-school-time activities may be confounded with other factors. The expected products will be scholarly publications and presentations. Results will be disseminated to out-of-school-time providers and stakeholders, educators, and educational researchers through appropriate-level journals and national meetings and conferences. In addition, the Public Affairs and Information Office of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics will assist with communicating results through mainstream media. Press releases will be available through academic outlets and Op-Ed pieces for newspapers. The expected outcome will be research-based evidence about which types of out-of-school STEM experiences may be effective in increasing young females' STEM interests. This information will be crucial to educators, service providers, as well as policy makers who work toward broadening the participation of females in STEM.