Peering a Generation into the Future: NSF's Young Scholars Program (YSP) and the nation’s STEM workforce

This project is a multiyear study of the impact of an enrichment program that the US National Science Foundation (NSF) managed in the 1990s. The Young Scholars Program (YSP) involved around 18,000 7th–12th grade students and 600 separate grants between 1989 and 1996. The purpose of YSP was to introduce high-achieving middle and secondary school students to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to encourage their entry into those fields and thus increase the size and quality of the nation’s STEM workforce. The study relies on epistemic frame theory and quantitative ethnography to frame key issues relevant to articulating the program’s impact.

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