BRITE Girls Online STEM Practices: Building Relevance and Identity to Transform Experiences

尽管数十年来的政策和计划旨在增加女孩和妇女在科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）中的代表性，但女孩和有色人种妇女在STEM劳动力中的比例仍然远远低于美国人口。这种代表性的缺乏阻碍了美国STEM劳动力发挥其真正的潜力。性别、种族、民族和阶级的不平等，沿着与谁在STEM领域取得成功相关的陈规定型观念（即，白色男性），导致他们不属于的看法，可能不会成功的干。最终，这些问题阻碍了女孩的STEM身份发展（即，归属感和未来的成功），导致有色人种妇女的代表危机，并对STEM劳动力产生复合影响。研究表明，课后和校外的STEM学习方案对女孩的归属感有积极的影响。2019冠状病毒病疫情引发的在线学习需求日益增长，意味着调查女孩在在线社区中的STEM身份发展至关重要。因此，该项目将完善和测试在线学习社区的方法，对有色人种女孩的STEM身份发展产生宝贵的影响，方法是：1）培训教育工作者和榜样，介绍STEM身份发展的示范方法;（2）实施协作，以女孩为中心的Brite在线学习社区，汇集了来自美国至少10个地点的400名13-16岁的女孩;（3）研究三种核心方法--社区建设、真实和能力展示实践活动以及与女性榜样互动学习--对在线环境中参与女孩STEM身份的影响。混合方法研究以Carlone&约翰逊的STEM身份模型为指导，包括四个结构：能力、表现、认可和归属感。该项目定量部分的数据收集来源包括调查前和调查后，而定性数据来源将从六个案例研究地点收集，包括观察、与女孩的焦点小组访谈、女孩和教育工作者创造的文物、教育工作者访谈和开放式调查答复。这种方法将使研究小组能够确定如何以及在何种程度上影响的Brite在线学习社区STEM身份结构，解释哪些做法导致有意义的结果，可以链接到STEM身份的发展参与女孩在网上环境。这项工作的成果将包括以研究为基础、经过测试的Brite实践和一个工具包，用于培养女孩对STEM的兴趣、认同和长期参与。由此产生的产品将增加非正式STEM教育计划对全国有色人种女孩的影响，因为在线空间可以接触到更多的女孩，可能会增加有色人种妇女在STEM劳动力中的代表性。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Despite decades of policies and programs meant to increase the representation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), girls and women of color still represent a much smaller percent of the STEM workforce than they do in the US population. This lack of representation is preventing the US STEM workforce from reaching its true potential. Intersecting inequalities of gender, race, ethnicity, and class, along with stereotypes associated with who is successful in STEM (i.e., White men), lead to perceptions that they do not belong and may not succeed in STEM. Ultimately, these issues hinder girls’ STEM identity development (i.e., sense of belonging and future success), lead to a crisis of representation for women of color and have compounding impacts on the STEM workforce. Research suggests there are positive impacts of in-person STEM learning after-school and out-of-school time programs on girls’ sense of belonging. The increasing need for online learning initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic means it is vital to investigate girls’ STEM identity development within an online community. Thus, the project will refine and test approaches in online learning communities to make a valuable impact on the STEM identity development of girls of color by 1) training educators and role models on exemplary approaches for STEM identity development; 2) implementing a collaborative, girl-focused Brite Online Learning Community that brings together 400 girls ages 13-16 from a minimum of 10 sites across the United States; and 3) researching the impact of the three core approaches -- community building, authentic and competence-demonstrating hands-on activities, and interactive learning with women role models -- on participating girls’ STEM identities in online settings.The mixed methods study is guided by guided by Carlone & Johnson’s model of STEM identity involving four constructs: competence, performance, recognition, and sense of belonging. Data collection sources for the quantitative portion of the project include pre- and post-surveys, while qualitative data sources will be collected from six case study sites and will include observations, focus group interviews with girls, artifacts created by girls and educators, educator interviews, and open-ended survey responses. This approach will enable the research team to determine how and the extent to which the Brite Online Learning Community influences STEM identity constructs, interpreting which practices lead to meaningful outcomes that can be linked to the development of STEM identity for participating girls in an online environment. The products of this work will include research-based, tested Brite Practices and a toolkit for fostering girls’ interest, identification, and long-term participation in STEM. The resulting products will increase the reach of informal STEM education programming to girls of color across the nation as online spaces can reach more girls, potentially increasing the representation of women of color in the STEM workforce. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning 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.