Role Models in Elementary Engineering Education

工程教育榜样项目（塔夫茨工程教育和外展中心和印第安纳大学）将通过研究和工具开发提高工程外展项目的影响。通过外展提供榜样的做法被广泛实践和推荐，但人们对小学生，尤其是女孩如何选择工程榜样却知之甚少。随着女孩进入中学，对工程的兴趣下降，这使得小学成为增强工程抱负的潜在关键发展窗口。该项目将生成并分享女小学生在大学工程推广项目中选择榜样的知识。具体来说，它将增进对女孩识别和选择工程榜样的方式的理解，并将有助于理解榜样如何促进女孩对工程职业的兴趣。该项目将为工程推广的最佳实践提供信息，并帮助大学的推广领导者为女小学生制定更有效的教育干预措施。最终，这项研究旨在增加学习工程学和担任工程师的女孩和妇女的数量。增加对工程学感兴趣的女孩和妇女的数量可以提高妇女的教育和经济公平性，并增加熟练工程师的数量，从而促进国家的技术发展。该项目将推进学生和教师创新技术体验 (ITEST) 计划的工作，以更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学 (STEM) 领域追求职业的动机和能力的实践。工程教育榜样项目的目标是增进对女小学生识别工程榜样的机制的理解，并开发资源来支持有效的榜样与学生互动，这些互动可用于任何基于大学的工程外展计划。干预模型借鉴了刻板印象接种模型、角色模型理论和基于设计的研究实践。该项目将在三年内对已建立的工程推广计划中的 160 名小学生和 96 名工程本科生进行研究，并将重点通过凸显本科生的工程身份以及在本科生和小学生之间建立支持关系，将他们定位为可效仿的榜样。该项目将对榜样与学生之间的互动进行深入的定性分析，并辅以定量工具来评估身份和职业意识。这项研究将为设计资源和培训的迭代过程提供信息，以准备工程领域的榜样并优化他们与小学生的互动。该项目旨在加深对女孩如何成为工程榜样的了解，并开展有效的榜样培训。通过增加工程榜样识别和吸收的知识，这项研究可以帮助外展服务提供者激发和维持更多女孩对工程学习和工程职业的兴趣。

The Role Models in Engineering Education project (Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach and Indiana University) will improve the impact of engineering outreach programs through research and tool development. Providing role models through outreach is widely practiced and recommended, yet little is known about how elementary students, particularly girls, choose engineering role models. Engineering interest declines as girls enter middle school, making elementary school a potentially critical developmental window for bolstering engineering aspirations. The project will generate and share knowledge of female elementary students' selection of role models in a university-based engineering outreach program. Specifically, it will increase understanding of the ways in which girls identify and select engineering role models and it will contribute to understanding how role models promote interest in engineering careers by girls. This project will inform best practices in engineering outreach, and help university outreach leaders develop more effective educational interventions for female elementary students. Ultimately, this research aims to increase the number of girls and women studying engineering and working as engineers. Increasing the number of girls and women interested in engineering increases educational and economic equity for women and increases the pool of skilled engineers, thereby improving technology development in the nation. This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM).The Role Models in Engineering Education project goals are to advance the understanding of the mechanisms by which female elementary students identify engineering role models and to develop resources to support effective role model-student interactions that can be used by any university-based engineering outreach program. The intervention model draws on the stereotype inoculation model, role model theory, and design-based research practices. Over three years, the project will study 160 elementary students and 96 undergraduate engineering students in an established engineering outreach program, and will focus on positioning the undergraduates as emulable role models by making their engineering identities evident and by building supportive relationships between the undergraduates and the elementary students. The project will utilize in-depth qualitative analysis of the interactions between role models and students, complemented with quantitative tools to evaluate identity and career awareness. This research will inform an iterative process of designing resources and training to prepare role models in engineering and optimize their interactions with elementary students. This project aims to increase understanding of how girls take up engineering role models and to develop effective role model training. By adding to knowledge of engineering role model identification and uptake, this research may help outreach providers spark and sustain more girls' interest in engineering study and engineering careers.