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，取决于对美国年轻人许多相关的大学前经历的影响的理解。虽然正式的准备，如高中课程，有很大的影响，但研究表明，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成员（黑人、土著、拉丁裔和/或太平洋岛民）。成人主导的创新（科学俱乐部、实习、博物馆参观、竞赛、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）都有广泛的选择。这个项目研究了大学预科学生这种体验的多样性和可获得性。该项目特别感兴趣的是如何通过非正式活动和经验来利用社区文化资本，利用文化多样化的学生为他们的STEM经历带来的“知识资金”（例如，高抱负、多语言能力、建立持续的社会网络以及挑战负面刻板印象的能力）。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，包括许多由nsf资助的项目开发和传播的方法。了解大学前影响者的生态环境及其所基于的假设，以及为试图扩大来自代表性不足群体的学生参与STEM专业和职业的多种途径的有效性提供初步衡量标准，将有助于决策，从而最大限度地发挥联邦和地方努力的战略影响。该项目首先从各种利益相关者（教育工作者、研究人员和学生）那里收集假设，这些假设是关于对提高学生的STEM身份和职业兴趣有影响的各种经历。通过对相关文献的回顾，使用众包平台调查利益相关者，并通过对50家供应商的深入访谈，确定各个项目机会的描述性属性，并验证多部分工具以确定学生体验。从少数族裔服务机构（如历史黑人学院、西班牙裔服务机构和部落学院和大学）抽取1000名两年制和四年制学院和大学的学生作为样本，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潜在结构的指数。当暴露于某些OST活动与其他因素（如父母教育、社会经济地位）混淆时，倾向得分加权将用于估计影响。路径模型和结构方程模型（SEM）将被用来建立使用因果或时间相关变量的模型，例如学生在大学前不同时期的职业兴趣。该研究不仅对个人经历进行了评估，还解决了一些重要问题，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机会符合代表性不足群体成员的不同价值观和目标，从而提高他们追求STEM职业的可能性。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）和EHR核心研究（ECR）项目共同资助。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项目支持的工作是推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.