EAGER: Peering a generation into the future: NSF's Young Scholars Program and the nation’s STEM workforce

1988年，美国国家科学基金会（NSF）重新启动了大学预科教育资助项目，其中包括青年学者项目（YSP）。YSP反映了NSF的意图，即接触到成绩优异的学生，并增加他们随后进入科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）专业和STEM劳动力的可能性。YSP针对7-12年级的青少年，提供暑期、周末和课后充实计划。在88财年至96财年期间，它为316个独立项目颁发了600多个奖项，涉及约1.8万名学生。这些YSP参与者中有很大一部分现在是国家STEM劳动力的一部分。轶事证据表明，如果没有YSP的参与，这些参与者中的许多人都不会追求STEM职业。该项目的主要目的是评估和记录YSP对国家STEM劳动力的实际影响。这样做的优先兴趣涉及黑人，拉丁裔，美洲原住民和女性个人当前的STEM劳动力参与，以及他们参与YSP与后来的职业道路之间的关系。利用档案记录和社交媒体，项目团队将联系尽可能多的YSP校友，寻求他们参与在线调查和访谈。探究当前专业人士在四分之一世纪前参加的中学或中学课程的影响，是一个在该课程实施时不可能现实地考虑到的机会。通过与参与者直接沟通，并创建可以为当前和未来规划提供信息的分析，该项目允许快速查看策略如何发挥作用。该项目将采用几种技术来联系前YSP学生，联系前YSP主办机构和项目主管，多种互联网搜索方法和滚雪球抽样。调查和访谈将由社会认知职业理论、认知框架理论和兴趣驱动创造者理论塑造。该项目将为与这些理论相关的研究文献做出贡献，并提供反映调查和访谈分析和综合的可交付成果。它还将为美国国家科学基金会和其他组织当前的项目提供研究——从历史上看，是有根据的指导，以创造一支成熟、包容的未来STEM劳动力队伍。该项目由“面向学生和教师的创新技术体验”（ITEST）项目资助，该项目支持有助于提高学生对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）以及信息和通信技术（ICT）职业的知识和兴趣的实践、项目要素、背景和过程的理解。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。

The first pre-college programs that the National Science Foundation (NSF) administered when it restarted pre-college education funding in 1988 included the Young Scholars Program (YSP). The YSP reflected NSF’s intention to reach high-achieving students and to increase the likelihood that they would subsequently enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and the STEM workforce. YSP targeted adolescents, grades 7-12, with summer, weekend, and after-school enrichment programs. It made just over 600 awards to 316 separate projects between FY88 and FY96, involving approximately 18,000 students. A significant fraction of these YSP participants is now part of the national STEM workforce. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these participants would not have pursued a STEM career without their YSP involvement. The major purpose of this project is to assess and document YSP's actual impact on the national STEM workforce. A priority interest in doing so involves current STEM workforce participation of Black, Latinx, Native American, and female individuals, and the relationship between their YSP participation and later career pathways. Using archival records and social media, the project team will contact as many YSP alumni as possible, seeking participation both in online surveys and in interviews. Probing current professionals about the impact of programs they participated in during middle or secondary school a quarter century ago is an opportunity that could not have been realistically contemplated when the program was in operation. This project allows a fast-forward view to see how strategies played out, by directly communicating with participants and creating analyses that can inform current and future programming.The project will apply several techniques for contacting former YSP students, reaching out to former YSP host institutions and project directors, multiple internet search methods, and snowball sampling. Surveys and interviews will be shaped by social-cognitive career theory, epistemic frame theory, and interest-driven creator theory. The project will contribute to the research literature associated with these theories, with deliverables that reflect analysis and synthesis of the surveys and interviews. It will also furnish research- and historically, grounded guidance for current programs by NSF and other organizations to create a sophisticated and inclusive future STEM workforce. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.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.