Enhancing Underrepresented Boys' Engagement in STEM through Mentoring and Father Involvement

该项目将推进学生和教师创新技术体验(ITEST)计划的努力，以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。STEM通过指导参与(SEM)项目以两种方式增加了当前的研究版图。首先，它依赖于休斯顿大学教育学院、自然科学与数学学院和工程学院之间有意设计的合作伙伴关系。其次，该计划侧重于代表不足的四年级和五年级男孩、他们的男性STEM导师和他们的父亲/男性照顾者之间的互动，他们参加了一个课后和周六的项目，提供引人入胜的动手STEM体验。本科生导师也来自传统上在STEM中代表性不足的群体。该项目以试点工作为基础，重点是(A)改善职前教师(领导项目课程)和本科生导师(支持学生)之间的互动，以及(B)创建符合德克萨斯州标准和下一代科学标准的动手STEM课程。该项目有可能为指导关系如何影响学习者的动机、知识和技能提供理论依据，同时阐明指导过程和关系如何影响导师本身。该项目追求三个研究问题：1)父亲/导师以什么方式激励学生意识到STEM职业，对STEM职业感兴趣，并为STEM职业做好准备？2)参与SM项目在多大程度上塑造了男孩和导师的STEM身份认同？3)教师自我效能感对职前教师的工科教学自我效能感有何影响？为了回答这些问题，该项目将使用包括访谈、焦点小组、观察和调查在内的混合方法。外部项目评估的结果将用于项目的改进和扩展，以及评估项目对学生科学和数学成果的早期承诺。SEM团队最初将与休斯顿地区的四所学校合作，直接影响120名四年级和五年级学生。随后，该项目旨在通过正规化和加强其与休斯顿大学TeachHOUSTON中学STEM职前教师培训计划的伙伴关系，将其影响扩大到全国范围。SEM的首要目标是将规模扩大到另外45所大学，这些大学是国家UTeach网络的一部分。通过利用与UTeach实施点的战略合作伙伴关系，SEM有可能接触到全国数千名代表性不足的四年级和五年级学生。

This project will advance the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program's efforts to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). The STEM Engagement through Mentoring (SEM) project adds to the current research landscape in two ways. First, it relies on an intentionally designed partnership among the University of Houston's College of Education, College of Natural Science & Mathematics, and College of Engineering. Second, the program focuses on interactions among underrepresented fourth and fifth grade boys, their male STEM mentors and their fathers / male caregivers who participate in an afterschool and Saturday program that provides engaging, hands-on STEM experiences. Undergraduate student mentors are also drawn from groups who have been traditionally underrepresented in STEM. Grounded in pilot work, the project focuses on (a) improving interactions between pre-service teachers (who lead the program sessions) and undergraduate mentors (who support the students) and (b) creating hands-on STEM lessons that are aligned with Texas standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. The project has potential to inform theories of how mentoring relationships impact learners' motivation, knowledge and skills while at the same time, illuminating how the mentoring process and relationships affect mentors themselves.The project pursues three research questions: 1) In what ways do the fathers/mentors motivate students to become aware of, interested in, and prepared for STEM careers? 2) To what extent does involvement in the SEM program shape boys' and mentors' STEM identity? And, 3) What impact does the SEM program have on pre-service teachers' self-efficacy for teaching engineering content? To answer these questions, the project will use a mixed methods approach including interviews, focus groups, observations, and surveys. Results of an external program evaluation will be used for program improvement and expansion, and to evaluate the early promise of the program for student outcomes in science and mathematics. The SEM team will initially work with four schools in the Houston region to directly impact 120 fourth and fifth grade students. Subsequently, the project aims to expand its impact to a national scale by formalizing and strengthening its partnership with the teachHOUSTON secondary STEM pre-service teacher training program at the University of Houston. SEM's overarching goal is to scale to 45 additional universities that are part of the national UTeach network. By leveraging the strategic partnership with a UTeach implementation site, SEM has the potential to reach thousands of underrepresented fourth and fifth grade students across the country.