Breaking Stereotypes through Culturally Relevant Storytelling: Optimizing Out-of-school Time STEM Experiences for Elementary-Age Girls to Strengthen their STEM Interest Pathways

美国迫切需要拉丁裔和非裔美国女性在STEM领域的观点和知识。为这些在STEM领域历史上代表性不足的人群提供早期STEM兴趣途径，对于在STEM劳动力中创造性别平等至关重要。有色人种女性在STEM领域存在深刻的不平等，影响了她们在这些领域的兴趣和坚持。这项服务于实践的研究项目将通过培养对STEM的早期兴趣，建立有关减少这些不平等的早期途径的重要知识。围绕谁能做STEM的性别陈规定型观念是导致女孩对STEM失去兴趣的社会文化障碍之一。这些刻板印象很早就出现了，并引导年轻女性远离STEM研究和追求。让女孩接触榜样是挑战关于谁属于STEM并在STEM中取得成功的陈规定型观念的有效策略。该项目将探讨如何结合叙事和讲故事的方法，STEM榜样和家庭支持的课后计划，激发小学年龄的女孩对STEM的兴趣，并培养他们的STEM身份。该项目的目标是K-5学生和来自代表性不足群体的家庭（例如，拉丁裔和非洲裔美国人）生活在贫困中。该项目将评估一个为小学女生和男生提供服务的以调查为基础的课后方案，并探讨在校外学习中增加讲故事的内容是否能更好地支持女生对STEM的兴趣。讲故事的功能包括：1）分享阅读以STEM女性为主题的书籍; 2）学生自己回忆STEM经历的叙述; 3）对STEM职业女性家长和社区成员的视频采访。该项目的第二个目的是建设学校和课后提供者的能力，以提供和维持课后STEM丰富经验。基于博物馆的非正式STEM专家将与课后提供者共同授课，提供名为课后科学，技术，工程，艺术和数学（A 'STEAM）的休斯顿儿童博物馆（CMH）课程。虽然A 'STEAM已经在100多个地点实施，并显示出希望，以扩大这一和其他有前途的课后计划，该小组将评估如何专业发展资源和共同促进方法可以建立课后教育工作者的能力，以提供最有前途的方法。UTHealth儿童学习研究所（CLI）的研究人员将与CMH博物馆为基础的非正式STEM教育工作者合作，YES Prep是一所高绩效的特许学校，为95%的代表性不足的群体提供服务，以及其他课后提供者，为大多数代表性不足的贫困群体提供服务。突出STEM中女性的讲故事组件将被添加到现有的课后计划（A 'STEAM Basic）中。 这个衍生程序被称为A 'STEAM Stories。课后计划的两个实例（基本和故事）包括课后教育者组件（正在进行的专业发展和辅导）、家庭组件（例如，家庭推广活动，面对面和虚拟家庭学习活动），以及两个基于年龄的组（K-G2和G3-G5）。此外，面向教育工作者的A 'STEAM Stories专业发展包括挑战STEM性别陈规定型观念的培训，并解释如何让女孩对科学感兴趣。该项目为期四年，分为四个阶段。在第一阶段，研究人员，CMH和课外教育工作者将调整课程的可扩展性和计划的讲故事的变化。在第二阶段，研究小组将进行一项实验研究，以评估项目对提高STEM兴趣和身份以及减少STEM性别刻板印象的影响。为此，该项目的团队将招募36个地点和1200名儿童从幼儿园到五年级。这一实验阶段旨在产生因果证据，并满足严格研究的最高标准。研究人员将网站随机分配到三个组中的一个：对照组，A 'STEAM基本组或A' STEAM故事组。在第3阶段，研究人员将跟进参与研究中心，以了解在博物馆非正式科学教育者支持撤回后，将课外教育者作为该计划的共同促进者是否允许可持续性。在第四阶段，该小组将传播课后课程，并为地方和国家课后教育工作者举办两次培训员培训。本研究采用定量和定性的方法。数据来源包括教育工作者和家庭调查，焦点小组和访谈，以及课后课程教学质量的观察和STEM任务期间亲子话语的分析。与儿童评估的结构包括STEM兴趣，STEM身份，STEM性别刻板印象认可以及词汇，科学和数学的标准化措施。调查结果将增加对如何优化小学年龄女孩的OST STEM体验以及如何加强所有参与者的STEM兴趣的理解。此外，这个项目将推进我们的知识，在多大程度上支架，共同教学的方法建立能力的课后提供者，以维持基于调查的STEM programmes.This服务于实践的研究项目是由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划，旨在（a）推进新的方法和证据为基础的理解的设计和发展STEM学习在非正式环境的资助;（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;以及（d）该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.

The U.S. urgently needs the perspective and knowledge of females who are Latinx and African American in STEM fields. Providing early STEM interest pathways for these populations that are historically underrepresented in STEM fields is critical to creating gender equity in the STEM workforce. There are profound inequities in STEM fields for women of color that impact their interest and persistence in these fields. This Research in Service to Practice project will build important knowledge about early pathways for reducing these inequities by developing early interest in STEM. Gender stereotypes around who can do STEM are one of the sociocultural barriers that contributes to girls’ loss of interest in STEM. These stereotypes emerge early and steer young women away from STEM studies and pursuits. Exposing girls to role models is an effective strategy for challenging stereotypes of who belongs and succeeds in STEM. This project will explore how an afterschool program that combines narrative and storytelling approaches, STEM role models, and family supports, sparks elementary-age girls’ interest in STEM and fosters their STEM identity. The project targets K-5 students and families from underrepresented groups (e.g., Latinx and African American) living in poverty. The project will evaluate an inquiry-based, afterschool program that serves both elementary school girls and boys and explores if adding storytelling components to the out-of-school time (OST) learning will better support girls’ interest in STEM. The storytelling features include: 1) shared reading of books featuring females in STEM; 2) students’ own narratives that reminisce about their STEM experiences; and 3) video interviews of female parents and community members with STEM careers. A secondary aim of this project is to build capacity of schools and afterschool providers to deliver and sustain afterschool STEM enrichment experiences. Museum-based informal STEM experts will co-teach with afterschool providers to deliver the Children’s Museum Houston (CMH) curriculum called Afterschool Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (A’STEAM). Although A’STEAM has been implemented in over 100 sites and shows promise, to scale-up this and other promising afterschool programs, the team will evaluate how professional development resources and the co-facilitation approach can build afterschool educators' capacity to deliver the most promising approaches.Researchers at the Children’s Learning Institute (CLI) at UTHealth will partner with Museum-based informal STEM educators at CMH, YES Prep, a high performing charter school serving 95% of underrepresented groups, and other afterschool providers serving mostly underrepresented groups experiencing poverty. Storytelling components that highlight females in STEM will be added to an existing afterschool program (A'STEAM Basic). This derivative program is called A’STEAM Stories. Both instantiations of the afterschool programs (Basic and Stories) include an afterschool educator component (ongoing professional development and coaching), a family component (e.g., home extension activities, in-person, and virtual family learning events), and two age-based groups (K-G2 and G3-G5). Further, the A’STEAM Stories professional development for educators includes training that challenges STEM gender stereotypes and explains how to make science interesting to girls. The 4-year project has four phases. In Phase 1, researchers, CMH, and afterschool educators will adapt the curriculum for scalability and the planned storytelling variation. During Phase 2, the research team will conduct an experimental study to evaluate program impacts on increasing STEM interest and identity and reducing STEM gender stereotypes. To this end, the project’s team will recruit 36 sites and 1200 children across Kindergarten through Grade 5. This experimental phase is designed to produce causal evidence and meet the highest standards for rigorous research. The researchers will randomly assign sites to one of three groups: control, A’STEAM Basic, or A’STEAM Stories. During Phase 3, researchers will follow-up with participating sites to understand if the inclusion of afterschool educators as co-facilitators of the program allowed for sustainability after Museum informal science educator support is withdrawn. In Phase 4, the team will disseminate the afterschool curriculum and conduct two training-of-trainers for local and national afterschool educators. This study uses quantitative and qualitative approaches. Data sources include educator and family surveys, focus groups, and interviews as well as observations of afterschool program instructional quality and analysis of parent-child discourse during a STEM task. Constructs assessed with children include STEM interest, STEM identity, and STEM gender stereotype endorsement as well as standardized measures of vocabulary, science, and math. Findings will increase understanding of how to optimize OST STEM experiences for elementary-age girls and how to strengthen STEM interest for all participants. Further, this project will advance our knowledge of the extent to which scaffolded, co-teaching approaches build capacity of afterschool providers to sustain inquiry-based STEM programs.This Research in Service to Practice 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.