New Mexico STEM Pathways
1649378
Enhancing the New Mexico STEM Pipeline program as part of the pilot project will develop an assessment framework to measure scientific self-efficacy, scientific identity and value orientation indicators as well as intention and behavioral indices related to integration of a student into the STEM community. By partnering with existing STEM curricular and extracurricular programs, Enhancing the New Mexico STEM Pipeline will have access to students in the STEM pipeline from grades six through PhD. Enhancing the New Mexico STEM Pipeline’s goal is to use these data to model a student’s STEM evolution and identify the point(s) where they stop thinking of STEM as a viable career path. This information will serve as feedback to the STEM programs where content can be modified to better retain underrepresented students.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Distinguished Professor of Psychology
Congratulations on your project! I wonder how you are measuring grit? In particular, I have read that grit among students from underserved minority backgrounds (as well as mainstream students) can sometimes backfire, when students think that if they just try harder they will succeed -- but often they need to try a different approach or ask for help (e.g., Claude Steele's work). Does your measure take this into account?
Steve Stochaj
Excellent observation. The way we are approaching the problem is to first get the students, particularly at the middle school -high school transition point, to "believe" they can be engineers. Then through the Project Lead The Way classes and the College-Level Engineering 100 course, we use a metacognition approach to help the students develop the study habits and study strategies of successful students.
Ann Gates
Can you comment on the community partnerships that you are seeking?
Jeremy Roschelle
Hi Steve,
Nice video. Could you say a bit more about how you'll come up with shared measures? It seems super important, but also quite challenging. Many efficacy/grit measures aren't that reliable when used repeatedly.... Wishing you the best in making rapid progress on this!
Steve Stochaj
You are correct about the reliability of repeated questions relating to grit and self efficacy. We are currently using questions from a pool of "open source" measures. Starting this summer, we will expand the pool so questions are not directly repeated. The majority of the activities done at our summer program are active-learning based and we hope to add observational measures starting in the summer of 2017.
Josh Freeman
Great video and great program. I am looking forward to learning more when some of you come out to our conference in April!
Marjorie Zatz
Great video and I look forward to learning more about your project. Can you say more about the hidden factors you have identified thus far that get in the way of students pursuing STEM degrees? How will you measure those factors, and what innovations do you suggest to help reduce the size of those barriers?
Leslie Goodyear
Principal Research Scientist
Thanks for sharing your vision - I'm also curious about what you call the hidden factors and how to address them. I'm also curious about how you're connecting these STEM experiences to longer term plans for the youth.
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.