Instrument Development: Racially & Ethnically Minoritized Youths’ Varied Out-Of-School-Time Experiences and Their Effects on STEM Attitudes, Identity, and Career Interest

增加科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）劳动力的多样性取决于了解国家青年的许多相关的大学前经历的影响。虽然正式的准备，如高中课程，有重大影响，研究表明，校外活动在塑造学生的态度，身份和职业兴趣方面发挥了更大的作用，特别是那些在STEM领域历史上代表性不足的群体（黑人，土著，拉丁裔和/或太平洋岛民）的成员。有各种各样的创新成人主导（科学俱乐部，实习，博物馆参观，比赛，夏令营）和个人选择（爱好，家庭谈话，游戏，模拟，社交媒体，在线课程）的选择。本项目研究的多样性和可用性等经验，大学预科学生。该项目特别感兴趣的是如何通过非正式活动和经验利用社区文化资本，利用文化多样性学生为他们的STEM经验带来的“知识基金”（例如，远大抱负、多语言设施、建立可持续的社交网络以及挑战消极陈规定型观念的能力）。这项研究有能力开始揭示有前途的非正式教育实践的绝对和相对有效性的循证措施，包括许多国家科学基金会资助的项目开发和传播。了解大学前影响者的生态及其所基于的假设，沿着对试图扩大STEM专业和职业中代表性不足群体的学生参与的多种途径的有效性的初步衡量，将有助于决策，最大限度地发挥联邦和地方努力的战略影响。（教育工作者，研究人员和学生）关于在增加学生的STEM身份和职业兴趣方面有所作为的各种体验。确定描述性属性，表征跨个别程序的机会，并验证多部分工具，以确定学生的经验将通过相关文献的审查，调查利益相关者使用众包平台，并通过深入采访50供应商进行。来自2年制和4年制学院和大学的1,000名学生的样本，来自少数民族服务机构，如历史上的黑人学院，西班牙裔服务机构和部落学院和大学，将有助于建立衍生工具的有效性和可靠性，并提供参与的可用性和频率的估计。心理测量方法和因素分析将指导我们将相关变量组合成反映基本结构的指数。当暴露于某些OST活动与其他因素（例如，父母教育，SES）。路径模型和结构方程模型（SEM）将被用来建立模型，使用因果或时间相关的变量，例如，学生的职业兴趣在不同的时间在他们的大学前的经验。该研究超越了对个人经验的评估，以解决重要问题，这将有助于政策制定者，教育工作者，家长和学生了解哪些OST机会服务于代表性不足的群体成员的不同价值观和目标，提高他们追求STEM职业的可能性。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）和EHR核心研究（ECR）计划共同资助。ECR计划支持广泛的基础STEM教育研究活动，针对正式和非正式环境中所有群体和年龄的学习者。AISL计划支持在非正式环境中设计和开发STEM学习的新方法和基于证据的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Increasing the diversity of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce hinges on understanding the impact of the many related, pre-college experiences of the nation’s youth. While formal preparation, such as high school course-taking, has a major influence, research has shown that out-of-school-time activities have a much larger role in shaping the attitudes, identity, and career interests of students, particularly those who are members of groups historically underrepresented in STEM fields (Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or Pacific Islander). A wide range of both innovative adult-led (science clubs, internships, museum-going, competitions, summer camps) and personal-choice (hobbies, family talk, games, simulations, social media, online courses) options exist. This project studies the variety and availability such experiences to pre-college students. The project is particularly interested in how community cultural capital is leveraged through informal activities and experiences, drawing upon the “funds of knowledge” that culturally diverse students bring to their STEM experiences (e.g., high aspirations, multilingual facility, building of sustaining social networks, and the capacity to challenge negative stereotyping). This study has the capability to begin to reveal evidence-based measures of the absolute and relative effectiveness of promising informal educational practices, including many developed and disseminated by NSF-funded programs. Understanding the ecology of precollege influencers and the hypotheses on which they are based, along with providing initial measures of the efficacy of multiple pathways attempting to broaden participation of students from underrepresented groups in STEM majors and careers, will aid decision-making that will maximize the strategic impact of federal and local efforts.The project first collects hypotheses from the wide variety of stakeholders (educators, researchers, and students) about the kinds of experiences that make a difference in increasing students’ STEM identity and career interest. Identifying the descriptive attributes that characterize opportunities across individual programs and validating a multi-part instrument to ascertain student experiences will be carried out through a review of relevant literature, surveying stakeholders using crowdsourced platforms, and through in-depth interviews with 50 providers. A sample of 1,000 students from 2- and 4-year college and universities, drawn from minority-serving institutions, such as Historically Black Colleges, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities will serve to establish the validity and reliability of the derived instrument and provide estimates of the availability and frequency of involvement. Psychometric methods and factor analysis will guide us in combining related variables into indices that reflect underlying constructs. Propensity score weighting will be employed for estimating effects when exposure to certain OST activities is confounded with other factors (e.g., parental education, SES). Path models and structural equation models (SEM) will be employed to build models that use causal or time related variables, for instance, students’ career interests at different times in their pre-college experience. The study goes beyond evaluation of individual experiences in addressing important questions that will help policy makers, educators, parents, and students understand which OST opportunities serve the diverse values and goals of members of underrepresented groups, boosting their likelihood of pursuing STEM careers. This project is co-funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) and EHR CORE Research (ECR) programs. The ECR program supports a wide range of fundamental STEM education research activities, aimed at learners of all groups and ages in formal and informal settings. The AISL program supports work that advances new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.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.