BRITE Girls Online STEM Practices: Building Relevance and Identity to Transform Experiences

尽管几十年来旨在增加女孩和妇女在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)中的代表性的政策和计划，女孩和有色人种妇女在STEM劳动力中所占的比例仍然比她们在美国人口中的比例要小得多。这种代表性的缺乏正在阻碍美国STEM劳动力发挥其真正的潜力。性别、种族、族裔和阶级的交叉不平等，以及与谁在STEM取得成功(即白人男性)有关的陈规定型观念，导致人们认为他们不属于STEM，也可能不会在STEM取得成功。归根结底，这些问题阻碍女孩的STEM身份发展(即归属感和未来的成功)，导致有色人种妇女的代表危机，并对STEM劳动力产生复杂的影响。研究表明，面对面的STEM学习、课外和课外时间项目对女孩的归属感有积极影响。新冠肺炎疫情引发的在线学习需求日益增长，这意味着调查女孩在在线社区内的STEM身份认同发展至关重要。因此，该项目将改进和测试在线学习社区的方法，通过以下方式对有色人种女孩的STEM身份发展产生宝贵影响：1)就STEM身份发展的模范方法培训教育工作者和榜样；2)实施一个协作性的、以女孩为中心的Brite在线学习社区，将来自全美至少10个网站的400名13-16岁的女孩聚集在一起；3)研究三种核心方法--社区建设、真实和能力示范实践活动、与女性榜样互动学习--对在线环境下参与女孩STEM认同的影响。混合方法研究以Carlone&Johnson的STEM认同模型为指导，涉及能力、表现、认同感和归属感四个结构。该项目定量部分的数据收集来源包括调查前和调查后，而定性数据来源将从六个案例研究地点收集，将包括观察、对女孩的焦点小组访谈、女孩和教育工作者创作的手工艺品、教育工作者访谈和不限成员名额调查答复。这一方法将使研究小组能够确定Brite在线学习社区如何以及在多大程度上影响STEM身份结构，解释哪些做法导致有意义的结果，这些结果可以与在线环境中参与的女孩的STEM身份发展联系起来。这项工作的产品将包括以研究为基础的、经过测试的Brite实践，以及一个工具包，用于培养女孩对STEM的兴趣、识别和长期参与。由此产生的产品将增加全国有色人种女孩接受非正式STEM教育节目的范围，因为在线空间可以接触到更多的女孩，有可能增加有色人种女性在STEM劳动力中的代表性。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习计划(AISL)资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中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。

Despite decades of policies and programs meant to increase the representation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), girls and women of color still represent a much smaller percent of the STEM workforce than they do in the US population. This lack of representation is preventing the US STEM workforce from reaching its true potential. Intersecting inequalities of gender, race, ethnicity, and class, along with stereotypes associated with who is successful in STEM (i.e., White men), lead to perceptions that they do not belong and may not succeed in STEM. Ultimately, these issues hinder girls’ STEM identity development (i.e., sense of belonging and future success), lead to a crisis of representation for women of color and have compounding impacts on the STEM workforce. Research suggests there are positive impacts of in-person STEM learning after-school and out-of-school time programs on girls’ sense of belonging. The increasing need for online learning initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic means it is vital to investigate girls’ STEM identity development within an online community. Thus, the project will refine and test approaches in online learning communities to make a valuable impact on the STEM identity development of girls of color by 1) training educators and role models on exemplary approaches for STEM identity development; 2) implementing a collaborative, girl-focused Brite Online Learning Community that brings together 400 girls ages 13-16 from a minimum of 10 sites across the United States; and 3) researching the impact of the three core approaches -- community building, authentic and competence-demonstrating hands-on activities, and interactive learning with women role models -- on participating girls’ STEM identities in online settings.The mixed methods study is guided by guided by Carlone & Johnson’s model of STEM identity involving four constructs: competence, performance, recognition, and sense of belonging. Data collection sources for the quantitative portion of the project include pre- and post-surveys, while qualitative data sources will be collected from six case study sites and will include observations, focus group interviews with girls, artifacts created by girls and educators, educator interviews, and open-ended survey responses. This approach will enable the research team to determine how and the extent to which the Brite Online Learning Community influences STEM identity constructs, interpreting which practices lead to meaningful outcomes that can be linked to the development of STEM identity for participating girls in an online environment. The products of this work will include research-based, tested Brite Practices and a toolkit for fostering girls’ interest, identification, and long-term participation in STEM. The resulting products will increase the reach of informal STEM education programming to girls of color across the nation as online spaces can reach more girls, potentially increasing the representation of women of color in the STEM workforce. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance 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.