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，取决于了解国家年轻人许多相关的大学前经历的影响。虽然正规的准备工作，如参加高中课程，有很大的影响，但研究表明，课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)。既有成人主导的创新(科学俱乐部、实习、参观博物馆、比赛、夏令营)，也有个人选择(爱好、家庭谈话、游戏、模拟、社交媒体、在线课程)的选择。该项目研究了这些体验的多样性和对大学预科学生的可用性。该项目特别关注如何通过非正式活动和体验利用社区文化资本，利用不同文化背景的学生为其STEM经历带来的“知识基金”(例如，抱负高、多语言设施、建立可持续的社会网络，以及挑战负面陈规定型观念的能力)。这项研究有能力开始揭示有前景的非正规教育做法的绝对和相对有效性的循证衡量标准，包括许多由NSF资助的项目开发和传播的做法。了解大学前影响者的生态和他们所基于的假设，并提供试图扩大STEM专业和职业中代表性不足群体学生参与的多条途径的有效性的初步测量，将有助于决策，使联邦和地方努力的战略影响最大化。该项目首先收集了各种利益相关者(教育工作者、研究人员和学生)关于哪些类型的经历对提高学生的STEM认同感和职业兴趣产生影响的假设。将通过查阅相关文献、使用众包平台对利益相关者进行调查，并通过对50家供应商的深入访谈，确定表征各个项目机会的描述性属性，并验证由多个部分组成的工具以确定学生体验。从少数民族服务机构，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，从2年制和4年制学院和大学中抽取1,000名学生作为样本，将有助于确定衍生工具的有效性和可靠性，并提供参与的可能性和频率的估计。心理测量学方法和因素分析将指导我们将相关变量组合成反映潜在结构的指数。当接触某些OST活动与其他因素(例如，父母教育、SES)相混淆时，将使用倾向分数加权来估计影响。路径模型和结构方程模型将被用来建立使用因果或时间相关变量的模型，例如，学生在大学前经历的不同时间的职业兴趣。这项研究超越了对解决重要问题的个人经验的评估，这些问题将帮助政策制定者、教育工作者、家长和学生了解哪些OST机会服务于代表不足群体成员的不同价值观和目标，从而提高他们追求STEM职业生涯的可能性。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STEM基础教育研究活动，目标是在正式和非正式环境中针对所有群体和年龄段的学习者。AISL计划支持推动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的工作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.