Actualizing STEM Potential in the Mississippi Delta

该项目将推动学生和教师创新技术体验(ITEST)计划的努力，通过调查现有协作机器人计划的有效性，更好地了解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学(STEM)领域追求职业生涯的动机和能力的实践。该项目将对居住在美国服务不足的密西西比河三角洲地区的非洲裔美国学生的STEM专业工程自我效能感和定向产生积极影响。这个项目的学生沉浸在需要应用科学和数学原理的工程设计活动中。该计划模式包括计算机科学、计算机辅助绘图和电子学的工程预科课程。这些都是由大学教职员工设计和协助的。本科生大四学生由教员培训，然后担任导师。高中教职员工为中小学生提供工程设计活动、职业指导活动和机器人夏令营。在春季学期开始时，学生们参加一个国际机器人大赛。这个机器人项目为期一年，在放学后进行，学生们在一年的一半时间里参加机器人竞赛。从大一开始，学生可以在高中期间继续参加该项目。了解对非裔美国学生对他们在STEM学科中的能力的看法产生积极影响的因素，以及他们对他们对STEM的认同感的看法，可能有助于理解和缩小STEM专业与美国服务不足人群学生之间的差距。这项纵向的混合方法研究旨在调查在合作的机器人学/工程前项目中实施的工程设计和职业定向活动对非裔美国学生自我效能感和科学认同感的影响，以更好地了解影响他们在STEM学科成就和STEM专业定向的因素。这是一项为期四年的研究，允许研究人员跟踪一组学生从一年级到大四结束，以便在大学专业和职业决策的高峰期观察和记录影响学生在工程课程活动中学习和成绩的关键因素。这项研究在学生的位置和人口方面是独一无二的，因为它是纵向的，并使用了混合方法。虽然这项研究调查了该项目在工程自我效能感、科学认同感和项目目标实现方面的有效性，但该研究的发现也可能对致力于增加来自其他边缘群体的STEM专业学生数量的倡议提供有价值的信息。在数量上，本研究采用前后测量来确定学生工程自我效能感和科学认同感的变化。定性地说，课堂观察和对高中生的访谈提供了关于被确定为有效地积极影响非裔美国学生实现项目目标和决定追求STEM职业生涯的具体项目要素的数据。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by investigating the effectiveness of an existing collaborative robotics program. The program will positively influence the engineering self-efficacy and orientation to STEM majors with African American students living in an underserved region of the United States, the Mississippi Delta. Students in this program are immersed in engineering design activities requiring the application of science and mathematics principles. The program model includes pre-engineering courses in computer science, computer aided drafting, and electronics. These are designed and facilitated by university faculty. Undergraduate seniors are trained by faculty and then serve as mentors. Engineering design activities, career orientation activities and robotics summer camps for elementary and middle school students are facilitated by high school faculty. At the beginning of the spring semester, students participate in an international robotics competition. This robotics program is year-long and occurs after school, and halfway through the year students enter their designs in a robotics competition. Beginning in the freshmen year, students are allowed to remain in the program throughout their years in high school. An understanding of the components that positively influence the African American students' beliefs about their abilities in STEM disciplines and their perceptions of their identification with STEM could be useful for understanding and decreasing the gap in STEM majors that exists with students from underserved populations in the United States. This longitudinal mixed methods research study is designed to investigate the influence of engineering design and career orientation activities implemented in a collaborative robotics/pre-engineering program on African American students' self-efficacy, and scientific identity, to better understand factors influencing their achievement in STEM disciplines and orientation to STEM majors. This is a four year study, allowing the researchers to follow a group of students from freshman to the end of their senior year, so that key factors influencing the students' learning and achievement in the engineering course activities can be observed and documented during the peak years of decision making for college majors and careers. This study is unique in terms of its location and population of students, and because it is longitudinal and utilizes a mixed methods approach. While this study investigates the effectiveness of the program on the engineering self-efficacy, scientific identity and achievement of program objectives for students in this program, the findings of the study could also be valuable for informing initiatives devoted to increasing the numbers of students from other marginalized groups majoring in STEM fields. Quantitatively, this research employs pre and post measures to determine changes in students engineering self-efficacy and scientific identities. Qualitatively, field notes from classroom observations and interviews with the high school students provide data on specific program elements determined to be effective in positively influencing the African American students' achievement of program objectives and decisions to pursue STEM careers.