A Culturally-Responsive Maker Program Designed to Develop the STEM Interest, Self-Efficacy and Science Identity of Black Girls

Black Girls Create （BGC）是一个使用创客教学法、社会历史（即黑人女性在STEM中的贡献）、文化响应教学法和指导来吸引黑人女孩参与STEM的项目。对于这个项目，文化响应制作在操作上被定义为使用文化知识和制造者技术来创造、设计和生产与特定概念、主题或人物相关的人工制品。该项目将开展一项可行性研究，调查参与BGC如何影响参与者对STEM的兴趣、STEM信心以及种族和性别认同。在该项目中，参与者将发现黑人女性如何在STEM领域产生影响，并将学习如何以数字方式创建与她们的发现相关的文化文物/可穿戴艺术。大约120名6-8年级的中学女生（8组，每组15人）将从服务不足的社区招募参与这项为期两年的研究。每个小组将在8周的时间内每周见面3小时。这项研究的教学材料将在网上免费提供，以便在其他正规和非正规教育机构中进行改编和使用，以吸引黑人女孩和妇女对STEM学习的兴趣和机会。采用测试前和测试后的准实验设计来研究项目对参与者自我效能感、种族认同和性别认同的影响。控制学生年龄、种族/民族和调查前得分的滞后回归模型将用于检查四种结果中的每一种的增长。一旦所有组的参与者都完成了BGC，来自所有组的数据将被合并以增加功率，从而检测调查前和调查后得分的统计学意义差异。此外，代表出勤率和项目参与度的变量将被输入到模型中，以检验高度参与BGC编程的学生是否在四个结果中表现出更多的增长。定性数据将来自学生的日记条目以及焦点小组访谈。每周的日志将被用来收集有关参与者在整个项目中展开的背景和经历的数据。半结构化焦点小组将围绕从项目活动中获得的技能和知识的有用性，与同龄人和项目工作人员的重要经验，了解黑人女性STEM祖先的机会，以及学习如何制作数字制造的文物。NVIVO是一种计算机软件程序，将作为一种工具来支持对来自期刊和焦点小组叙述的丰富的基于文本的信息进行分析。该可行性研究项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在(a)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；(b)提供多种途径，以扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验的机会；(c)推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估；(d)让所有年龄段的公众在非正式环境中学习STEM。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。

Black Girls Create (BGC) is a program that uses maker pedagogy, social history (i.e., Black women’s contributions in STEM), culturally responsive pedagogy, and mentoring to engage Black girls in STEM. For the project, culturally responsive making is operationally defined as the use of cultural knowledge and maker technologies to create, design, and produce artifacts that are related to a particular concept, theme, or person. The project will conduct a feasibility research study that investigates how engagement in BGC affects participants' STEM interest, STEM confidence, and racial and gender identities. In the project, participants will discover how Black women have made an impact in STEM fields and will learn how to digitally create cultural artifacts/wearable art related to their discoveries. Approximately 120 middle school girls in grades 6-8 (8 groups of 15 participants each) from underserved neighborhoods will be recruited for participation in this two-year study. Each group will meet for 3 hours per week over an 8-week period. Instructional materials from this research will be made freely available online so that they can be adapted and used at other formal and informal educational institutions that seek to garner interest and access to STEM learning for Black girls and women.A pre- and post-test, quasi-experimental design will be used to research the program’s influence on participants’ self-efficacy, racial identity, and gender identity. Lagged regression models that control for students’ age, race/ethnicity, and pre-survey scores will be used to examine growth in each of the four outcomes. Once all of the participants in the groups have completed BGC, data from all groups will be combined to increase power and thereby detect statistically meaningful differences in pre- and post-survey scores. In addition, variables representing attendance and program engagement will be entered into the model to examine whether students who are highly engaged in BGC programming exhibit more growth in the four outcomes. Qualitative data will be derived from students' journal entries as well as focus group interviews. Weekly journals will be used to gather data about the context and experiences of participants as they unfold throughout the program. Semi-structured focus groups will center around the usefulness of skills and knowledge gained from the program activities, significant experiences with peers and program staff, the opportunity to learn about Black women STEM progenitors, and learning how to make digitally fabricated artifacts. NVIVO, a computer software program, will be used as a tool to support the analysis of the rich, text-based information resulting from the journals and focus group narratives. This feasibilty research project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM 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.