STEM Assessment and Reporting Tracker (START)

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PROJECT SUMMARY ! This collaborative proposal with Oregon's network of Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) hubs supports programs' STEM evaluation needs through assessment and real-time reporting of psychosocial factors that influence STEM identity development and persistence across diverse student backgrounds. Our collaborative strengths will iteratively develop the STEM Assessment and Reporting Tracker (START), a robust online evaluation tool for engaging students with immediate, tailored e-feedback aimed at supporting their STEM development while rapidly informing STEM programs' efforts. We propose a four phase process: Phase 1 will work with stakeholders (e.g., teachers, principals, administrators, STEM hubs, STEM programs) to identify common needs for assessment and reporting. Phase 2 will define informatics architecture and schema to support reporting outputs, data security, governance structures, and linkage with other data sources. Phase 3 will apply project-based learning with secondary students and STEM partners to iteratively develop START's student e-feedback, while Phase 4 will identify educator professional development needs for sustainability. Together, this project will accelerate the speed that schools and STEM programs receive summary data about their students to formatively inform programmatic activities and demonstrate program effectiveness. To achieve this goal, our specific aims will:1) identify assessment needs, reporting requirements, and repository permissions to support STEM programs in evaluating students' identity development in STEM; 2) integrate project-based learning with mentoring activities that connect secondary students with inter-professional near-peer scientists to co-design START's student e-feedback; 3) determine teacher professional development (PD) needs for enhancing capacity to use the data and respond to START-identified student needs. Together, this project aims to enhance students' STEM development and persistence by supporting STEM programs in the measurement, immediate analyses, and rapid reporting of psychosocial factors that support students' success in STEM. Our project's significance is further enhanced by enabling comparative effectiveness research across sites to aid in the future identification of STEM programmatic features most supportive of STEM identity development and STEM persistence.