
NSF Org: |
DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) |
Recipient: |
|
Initial Amendment Date: | January 17, 2018 |
Latest Amendment Date: | July 16, 2021 |
Award Number: | 1760311 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Joan Walker
jowalker@nsf.gov (703)292-4814 DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
Start Date: | February 1, 2018 |
End Date: | July 31, 2022 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $1,000,000.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $1,099,975.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2021 = $99,975.00 |
History of Investigator: |
|
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
4300 MARTIN LUTHER KING BLVD HOUSTON TX US 77204-3067 (713)743-5773 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
Primary Place of Performance: |
4800 Calhoun Boulevard Houston TX US 77204-2015 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
Parent UEI: |
|
NSF Program(s): | ITEST-Inov Tech Exp Stu & Teac |
Primary Program Source: |
|
Program Reference Code(s): |
|
Program Element Code(s): |
|
Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
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.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
Note:
When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external
site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a
charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from
this site.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The overall goal of NSF-ITEST 1760311 Enhancing Underrepresented Boys' Engagement in STEM through Mentoring and Father Involvement was to contribute to knowledge around ITEST guiding questions 2 and 5. The project involved partnerships between STEM and education faculty at the University of Houston (UH) with mentorship from the participants' fathers/families and UH STEM undergraduates to provide hands-on STEM experiences to fourth and fifth-grade Boys of Color. The goals of the project were to increase student awareness of STEM-related disciplines and careers through hands-on problem-based engineering/STEM design projects and engagement with STEM professionals; motivate students to pursue education pathways for STEM-related careers; enhance engineering identity among students, and provide students with engaging experiences that develop disciplinary-based knowledge and practices. We did this by providing opportunities for students to be users of technology in innovative ways and engaging them in the engineering design process.
Intellectual Merit: Much of our work focused on the role of and the experiences of the mentors, who were mostly from racial/ethnically diverse backgrounds that were similar to program participants, in the success of program implementation. We were able to achieve five publications: Engagement in Practice: STEM Engagement through Mentoring (Manuel et al., 2018); Motivations of STEM Mentors (Henderson et al., 2019)- both in the Proceedings of ASEE Conference; and The Motivations of STEM Mentors in Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning (Snodgrass Rangel, et al., 2021); and Enhancing engineering identity among boys of color, Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (Henderson et al., 2021) and Mentoring roles in an afterschool STEM mentoring program: an investigation of why mentors enact different roles (Rangel et al., 2022). Two additional manuscripts are under review. Data reveal that 95% of participants are more interested in STEM after program participation, 87% report that they participate more in science and math in school, 91% indicated that they learned from and enjoyed having the participation of fathers, and 91% said that they were more confident during science and math lessons in school. Moreover, we have demonstrated that the key program components are well-structured to enhance engineering identity among the students we serve.
Mentorship was also a key aspect of helping students form their STEM/engineering identity. Program implementation continues to vary somewhat across the sites in terms of the roles that the mentors play: At one site, they primarily serve as teachers, while at the other two sites, they serve as teachers and as friends. We hypothesize that the differences stem from how the mentors understand and define the kids' needs.
The project's Broader Impacts included exposing approximately 200 students and their families across four elementary schools in Houston to STEM. We have also implemented the project at one school in Urbana, Illinois. We have contributed to helping build a scientifically literate public by providing participants and families opportunities to engage in hands-on STEM activities, attend field trips, be exposed to faculty research, develop relationships with college mentors, and engage with engineering professionals in STEM. For example, participants and families were introduced to STEM careers and technology through our partnership with Chevron Phillips Chemical Company (CP Chem) engineers. CP Chem engineers were invited to speak with participants about their education, and career trajectories and provided encouragement to SEM participants.
In addition, we have trained 36 undergraduate mentors in how to engage the general public with STEM. They were trained in best practices in classroom management, culturally responsive pedagogy, and anti-deficit thinking framework. Mentors along with teachHOUSTON partners, also developed 5E lesson plans and learning modules which aligned with the NGSS science and engineering standards. These modules have been incorporated into the teachHOUSTON curriculum for pre-service STEM teachers at UH and many of them have been uploaded to the project website.
In response to COVID-19, we were faced with the decision of whether to cancel the program or to forge ahead virtually. The team ultimately offered the program virtually and deliver experiment kits to students. In addition, in response to concerns from families with girls who wanted their daughters to participate and the increasing need to expose young women to STEM, we opened up the program for young girls also. During this time, in response to the communities that we serve, the program?s parent liaison also provided a variety of mental health services, career opportunities, and STEM engagement resources through weekly zoom meetings.
Next, we are partnering with UH faculty to develop and implement projects related to their research, and using institutional support we will investigate the impact of the program on family learning and engagement.
Summative project evaluation results have identified this program as highly likely to be scaled to additional schools and regions within the United States. Evaluators also recommended that we apply to ITEST SEI.
Last Modified: 11/30/2022
Modified by: Jerrod Henderson
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.